


Weight of The World

by Shellyyum



Series: The Collection [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Protagonist, Female Relationships, Love, Love Confessions, Love/Hate, Robot/Human Relationships, Self Harm, Spoilers, Tragedy, Trigger Warnings, self injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:36:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 38
Words: 41,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13293027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shellyyum/pseuds/Shellyyum
Summary: Love. Love. Love. Love? Love??LOVE!?In a Killing Game?I think not...or am I wrong?(Spoilers for V3)





	1. Love is Trash

Falling in love was the worst thing to do in the amidst of a Killing game and yet, it was done. It was given as a present by Monokuma and then only to be ripped and shredded and so, what hope could come from that? What mercy was that when you found out the one you loved killed or was killed? And yet, the Ultimate Bibliophile Ayumi Mizota, struggled to cuss the words falling and mangling up in the tense atmosphere. This was a class trial and here they were doing this again for the fourth time, and yet, every class trial was just as agonizing except for this one, that had her breaking down, sobbing as she realized the truth. The one moment of love felt fleeting and yet, it was bright though, now, it was hollow, and she deserved so much more.

And that’s what she got, too.

That’s what she did when she took those piled moments and strung them together and found them wanting in the end.

Shuichi Saihara’s face was quite hidden but decided he was and determined to grasp the truth that he forgot about the feelings being faced as love felt like a deterrent to something worse-death. Love for a mad man, love for a very conflicting and even perplexing Ultimate Supreme Leader, that had her quivering, almost ready to collapse, almost ready to believe the worst.

Kaito Momota popped out of the Exisal and like before, Ayumi’s face was conveyed as something indescribable as the verdict was read and she was forced to reconcile the end of Kokichi Oma’s life. He was crushed. He was gone, and all because of the lack of trust he had in people, and all because he wanted to end the Killing Game that he claimed to ‘love’ but like all things, it was a lie, like himself. A unraveling lie that boosted up the speed of the end, and when Kaito’s punishment played out…

She couldn’t smile.

She hated the idiot, Kaito Momota but knew how infectious his attitude was, and that, he had some merit as a person, but she wasn’t the only one suffering.

Maki Harukawa, the Ultimate Assassin, had, too, fallen to love’s vicious ways, and she was willing to die, but Ayumi could only live, so what difference does that it make between them?

Why did he, Kokichi Oma adamant to be the Mastermind and not tell her? They didn’t share much if not many things between them, but this, was too huge for one person alone and she felt that he didn’t trust her. Did he hate her in the end?

**No.**

**Love was trash** , but it was worthy trash to dig into.

She recalled by the dotting of her own tears, the endless kisses, and the lack of restraints of hearts between her and Kokichi, but why did it happen in the first place? Why did it happen anyways? Why would an evil Supreme Leader that often lied and was labeled a liar in the beginning, ever find time for love?

Love had bloomed in a killing game. Love was still the hope and drive needed.

She’d love and carry on Kokichi Oma’s words and possibly last moments to her soul, the overbearing one.

Love was definitely trash but one day, it could be treasure.


	2. Honey, That's A Pause

This whole love business started when Ayumi called Kokichi Oma, “cute” and then insulted him after with “little shit”, and not to mention, the whole grabbing his face and kissing him bit afterwards, and that might have been the final straw because he gained back control and stormed out, face cloudy and furious.

Furious that he was played by her, or that he couldn’t possess something so easily as an emotion and maybe was either ashamed or embarrassed? Well, whatever could be the case, as she only knew that, her part was possible in this Killing Game.

This was the morning after Kaede Akamatsu’s brutal execution, and it was harder than ever to cheer up Shuichi Sarihara, the Ultimate Detective, but he had taken off his hat and that stray hair bounced right up, and he looked better now that he was staring at the world and the truth he didn’t want to obtain, but that had been Kaede’s second wish after all: to gain the truth and not run from it.

Could they all do this in this Killing Game?

Could they even bother to act like people or were they went to degrade themselves further like Kaede? As she only wanted to save everyone from the Mastermind, but here…the game continued.

Ayumi’s tongue was held but Kaito Momota, the crazy purple haired Ultimate Astronaut, beamed, but everyone was happy even amidst the tragedy of the first execution in this game; the game that would leave only 2 survivors but was it possible to continue playing it? The motives would continue henceforth.

She leaned forward to the sitting Shuichi.

“You didn’t have to do that to Kokichi…”

“Maaaybe not, but I did mean it after all and you cannot blame me entirely.”

Yeah, if she didn’t crush on guys-any cute guys easily like she was being towards Shuichi, but even, if her overtures were ignored, she persisted a bit until she realized the gravity of what last night had brought. Shuichi liked Kaede, and maybe even loved her, but…

What did love have to do anything with anything in this Killing Game?

“You sound like Kokichi.”

“I don’t mean to either, as he’s not the only smart ass here, though I am more sadistic than anything.” Her voice faded after the last syllable.

“What?”

“Nothing, Shuichi. Regardless, I can give him a hard time if he tries it, and besides, he was incredibly nasty at the class trial last night, and you didn’t need that. We all didn’t, though I don’t know his problem especially.”

 “Don’t worry too much about it, Ayumi.” Shuichi’s voice was quite meek even now, but it still had hope to obtain that strength-that truth that he was refusing again, truth that could be his as he was the Ultimate Detective but again…losing someone you loved was harder to get over, and she knew by some extent that he was in mourning even now, so she dropped the flirting and just carefully folded herself back into her seat.

“I won’t push you to come to me if you need someone and you probably already know the whole spiel about being there for someone, but I want you to understand that, this isn’t about your feelings anymore-it is about lives-our lives and finally our feelings don’t matter.”

“Why’d you kiss Kokichi?”

“I gave him a hard time today, because of you. I really wished I said more, but what could I do short of killing him there? Not good on my life or anyone’s for that matter.”

“T-Thank you.”

“It’s what friends do!” Kaito shouted.

“Yeah. Yeah.”  Shuichi, with almost a grin, or even a smile, was finally waking up to his potential.

“You aren’t afraid of the whole Ultimate Surpreme Leader?”

“Nah. I mean, my talent, isn’t the greatest but my love of books helps me figure anything out, including evil organizations or liars like him. I read multiple books on every subject but that’s besides the point, but his lying is concerning and even delusion on some level. Hmmm.”

Ayumi Mizota, The **Ultimate  Bibliophile.**

The Ultimate Book Nerd and/or Lover as sometimes people often talked about her, but she was fine with her love/admiration of books and all the information that it held over the collective stupidity of people. Books were indeed preferred over people, and just the world, but she could fake it perfectly, though in turn, she saw through to Kokichi’s paranoia, already, and the extent of that.

Would that hurt them in the end? She didn’t know but that “little shit” Kokichi would be watched by her, until, either she forgot or if he made any moves but was it still determined that no Mastermind existed? Maybe it was through that fallacy that Kaede had to lose her life to answer.

The body; the swinging lifeless body, just a husk…all her kindness and positivity gone just like that in minutes while the foreword kept transforming. Kept writing itself and slowly, Ayumi could reconcile the agony of the dead, the many dead that were to come soon.

She was sure.

“H-Hey, Ayumi?”

“Yeah, Shuichi?”

“D-Do you think-”

“Okay, well I did say that feelings don’t matter, but it doesn’t hurt to trust someone as intricate and delicate as you. Plus, it is for protection, as well.”

“Protection?”

“In case, you need to solve my own murder.”

“D-Don’t say that.”

“But I am glad that Kaito, here, got you out of your room. You look cuter this way without the hat. Just have more confidence in yourself and the abilities that you possess. We are all Ultimates, and are legitimate except Kokichi’s in said talents, so don’t think less of yourself because of terrible outcomes.”

“Ayumi?”

“What?”

“You sure sound like Kaede.”

Ayumi’s hands fretted back and forth till, they collapsed, as if recalling the last goodbyes-it wasn’t just Shuichi that said goodbye to Kaede, but her, too. She had grown to like the Ultimate Pianist, and yet, even when the trial became closer to the end, she couldn’t say goodbyes either but, holding it, wasn’t possible to survive this Killing Game.

“H-Hey. I am just me, you know? Regardless, Shuichi, we should definitely check around this place…there’s still more to be discovered in this Academy, and besides, I think we should get to know more about our fellow classmates.”

“That sounds like a plan!”

“Of course, you think so, dummy, Kaito.” She sneered then snorted into laughter.

“H-HEY that isn’t…actually that is funny.” Kaito remarked beginning to wind himself into a hearty grin and even rounder laugh, and then Shuichi smiled, as if the veil of that hat was gone now, too **.  Liberting.**

As if she knew exactly what to do…as if she could stay by Shuichi and even Kaito and be alright in the end-but by some grace, she had to survive, they all did, but when would the next murder take place? She didn’t believe much was possible except in books, but reality was often inhumane and even sorrowful to those residing in it. Cruel to force them to kill one another in secret lest they or the innocent die in that freaky and monstrous class trials.

It wasn’t until, they all three left the dining hall, that Ayumi’s trick ended up becoming worse than she could have imagined.

 


	3. Don't Tell Me That I Am Wrong

The weight of the world felt unbelievable, and yet, Ayumi staggered once someone reached out and grabbed her weakness, and wouldn’t let go, but by the flicker of momentarily hair in her view point…Kokichi was out for revenge or worse, and no matter how unpredictable his actions were and how outrageous his lies became, she knew that the truth was shoved in the depths, amongst the moving wheels of his heart, but did he have a heart?

At least some working sense of feeling?

“Kokichi…” Her voice was faltering faster and somehow, Shuichi and Kaito had gone ahead and so, she was left in the dining room with this Ultimate Supreme Leader, Kokichi Oma.

Even his name was ominous and befitting of a leader of such a malicious organization boosting that 10,000 members but lies begot lies; And luckily, her own talent had her be the freak she needed to know about liars and their signs. Score one for her talent.

His face was still hidden and for a moment, breakage happened.

“I know you’re a supreme leader, but this isn’t becoming of you-”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!”

Taken aback by the crocodile tears, it still had her on the very edge but she smiled despite the show he performed.

“Y-You’re not amused?”

“Should I be?” She asked bluntly and for that, he lost his footing. “It’s all fake and you’re exposed by now.”

“Oh-reeeeeally?”

“Don’t be coy, but that doesn’t change how I feel.”

“Oh, come on! You’re no fun, but at least, you’re super smart and can see through this façade.”

“Always because I have the knowledge from my years of reading-book reading and loving them are my Ultimate talents after all.”

“Must be a bore, honestly.”

“Actually no. You find ways to deal with people like yourself, but I am guessing the truth is, you’re just as frightened as the rest of us.”

He flinched.

“What would you really know?”

“Besides being a little shit…you’re pretty endearing.” She said, grinning, watching him squirm in the affection he never had, but was starting to crave, because why not? He was toying with them all and yet, he was hurting, too. Who wasn’t hurting? She wasn’t entirely anymore and now, she had to heal the hearts of Shuichi and anyone that needed it, but couldn’t that be daunting?

“Why are you focusing on me?”

“Let’s just say, I have a bit of a crush on you.”

Again, his face darkened and hair fallen into places that hid any true intentions but with some renewed vigor, she detached but somehow, she was reading his resistance of her going. What was up with him? Even if she couldn’t win his heart, then, she’d leave it be and just focus on the Killing Game.

“Would you want to make it a reality?” He asked seriously.

“Stop bluffing.”

“I wish I was…”

“What do you want from me, anyhow? Is it part of your scheming as an evil supreme leader?” She snorted.

“I want you to join me.”

“You mean as your lackey? No way. If I go under you, then, it’s rifle with abuse and untold terrors and besides-I rather pull the strings of the operation. I’ve read books on leaders from the world and numerous ways to command an occult or any shady organizations.” She declared proudly.

“No. As my second in command.”

“What’s the catch? There’s one, isn’t there? Typical.” She grinned but it was in a mocking way, and yet, with eyes focused on her, it still made her more nervous but luckily, tips how to relax and keep confidence was another subject she invested in. Books were life. Books were the only thing keeping her alive.

“There’s none, but I promise you, that you’ll be the one kissing my knees.”

“Sure, Kokichi, now-”

Another tighter grasp and this time, it wasn’t unnoticed, but rather welcomed. Why? Nah, crushes were just so weird at times-liking someone put oneself in risk of damage in any vicinity, but was he capable of feeling more than on the surface?

Yet, she could interpret all she wanted from his reluctance to let go, but with all crushes, it didn’t have to amount to anything wild or noteworthy unless, the other party…He didn’t want to let go, did he? Did she start something that she couldn’t possibly deal with? Maybe she shouldn’t have kissed him then and maybe…and maybe she shouldn’t let her own heart dictate anything else in this brutal Killing Game.

“There’s no catch, at least, from what I’ve thought of, but if you want, you can always kill me to assume my position.”

“Nah. I aim not to kill or be killed here.” She caught the joke in his voice and preceded again to leave, but with her own determination, she stayed. She stayed and all she could do. “I don’t believe in killing and I don’t intend to start it.”

“Then, you’re perfect for my organization.” His eyes lit up, but his hand was heavy and not wanting to give up.

“Why won’t you-?”

“Maybe, I too, have a crush on you or I am a liar.” He said smirking.

“I might be good at reading clues due to my extensive knowledge, but it doesn’t mean, I can’t put that into practice, but I guess, even book smarts don’t always equal to street smarts.”

“You’re telling meeee.”

Again, in that sing-song voice but could he just let go already? And who knew such a person had a grip like steel on them, she certainly didn’t, nor wanted to know more at what he was capable of doing.

Was there much of a choice but to join and wave it off later? She could, oh she definitely could but why would he want her to be second in command? Was it the knowledge that books gave her or far sinister purposes?

“Then, if you aren’t lying, kiss me.” She demanded.

The romantic section could pay off and she could bluff without flinching and maybe scaring him off. Why did she pick the weirdest guys to crush on?

“Is that what you want?”

“Can you even do it?” She fired back. “And I mean a real kiss-no pecks and you don’t even have to French kiss, but rather just have our lips touch but you either will mean it or not.”

“I could totally doooo that.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Calling his bluff was dangerous, indeed, but without thinking he could-without summarizing the many complexities of Kokichi Oma, she found those lips wrapped up on her’s and yes-there was no denying it. No denying the warmth and tenderness of it-could that even be possible? He was being truthful.

“I told you, I wasn’t lying.”

“Y-You…”

“Now, you have to join.”

Skeptical of him, even more.

The Ultimate Supreme Leader had gotten revenge and now, she, Ayumi would be paying for it-because after all, she had begun this little game with such impulsiveness, which was the same kind that held her back as a person.

“Oh, but if you do join and you will, there is a catch, which I lied about.”

Figures.

“Not only will you be my second in command, but you will be mine from now on.”

His face contorted and was menacing with eyes widen and darkness overwhelming him. Those faces, those expressions.

Without so much of a thought…

Lips.

Tender lips again.

“H-Hey-” He yelped as her hands freed themselves and instead of running, she yanked Kokichi by his sleeves and let the heat between them smother.

“Now, I’ve won.” She announced, victorious, but his expression was softening to a normal look for him-at least, a passable look. “And, I’ve given my answer.”


	4. Stay

“It everything okay?”

“Oh, Shuichi.” Ayumi exclaimed while her curls bounced in unison as she turned her focus back onto the Ultimate Detective’s confused face. “Oh yeah. Whatever you saw, it’s nothing.”

What did he see?

Would he mention it?

“Absolutely nothing, Shuichi.” Kokichi chimed in as a more skeptical expression burrowed into Shuichi’s gaze. Even without any confidence, he certainly wasn’t unintelligent and knowing that he probably saw a lot…she wanted to faint.

“W-Well, I came to get you, though I am sorry that Kaito ran off.”

“He’s an idiot and of course, he would not think of others.”

“You’re one to talk.” She snapped feeling the strength return to her feet, but she was only teasing really, and maybe Kokichi knew that. Maybe he didn’t but the clues were obvious, weren’t they?

“Ooooh, pretty girl with an attitude. I guess, it’s my time to leave.”

“W-Wait!” Shuichi’s voice rang out suddenly and while, that was enough to halt everything, Kokichi still moved to his own beat, leaving Shuichi with nothing again. Man, he never had any luck but if he did, then his title would be changed to Ultimate Lucky Student but that still didn’t suit him.

“D-Did you…?”

“I was only playing his game, Shuichi, nothing more and nothing less.”

She swore that Shuichi’s cheeks were burning with red and maybe it meant he was finally coming around with his own feelings and maybe accepting the finality of Kaede’s execution but Ayumi could only hope.

“Let’s find Kaito-”

“Thank you for trying your best to stay with me.”

She sensed the seriousness and possibly the affection behind his voice, and yet, while she had played with Kokichi, this thing with Shuichi felt more tangible and even within her grasp for the first time, but, she wouldn’t risk a friendship over love. Would he? Would he be the one to make the first move or was his shy nature too overpowering?

“It’s no problem, but don’t worry about Kokichi. I may be crushing on him, but it’s a playful crush more than anything…because there’s someone else that I feel strongly about.”

“I think I know who you mean.”

Another blush.

“It’s useless anyhow. He’s just stuck on this one girl and I wouldn’t have a chance.”

“T-That’s not true.”

“What are you saying, Shuichi Saihara?”

He averted his eyes and suddenly, she knew, and while guilt flooded her, she wouldn’t do anything about what she was feeling. She wouldn’t if his heart wasn’t in it.

“Well, we can’t stay here forever, you know? Kaito, sooner or later will realize we’re gone.” She tried to smile and through the agony of it, she wanted to kiss him more and more as it went on.

“Y-Yeah.”

He was in love with Kaede and that couldn’t be overstated or even comparable to what she meant more to him, than Ayumi could ever be. She would be okay with unrequited love, if it meant to aid in his healing process, she wanted him to come to terms with his own reality and the acceptance of things that couldn’t change.

She would do her best…maybe, that wasn’t enough? She hadn’t thought of it more, and while, saying goodbye to the dining room, she felt that she could understand more of his plight and even with some folly of her own, she could go down the path, but what could she do about Kokichi? She had agreed to be his’ and yet, there was more implications in his silly lies and games. Would she really risk breaking this fun or was he quite serious?

“I know it wasn’t my place, but I saw and heard what you and Kokichi were talking about.”

It was her turn to be embarrassed.

“I told you-”

“You meant it. I think, instead of waiting and wasting it all on me, you should… **stay away from him.”**

What a twist.

“I am fine, Shuichi.”

“I mean it as I don’t want you hurt by him.”

“If I get hurt, then it happens, but doesn’t mean that some risks aren’t worth it, and knowing that I can’t sway you in your own heart, means I have to move on.”

Why was she being so forthcoming?

“I am only trying to help you, you know?”

“I know, Shuichi and I appreciate it, now, let’s not dwell on it anymore.”

Let’s not. Let’s not for she might like the little shit, Kokichi Oma more and forget about Shuichi Saihara and maybe that was for the best, but could love bloom on this battlefield?

 

 

 

 

 

“Kokichi?” Ayumi’s voice was quiet and even wavering, but he was right there with his arms behind his head, grinning. Was he really going to take this whole ‘evil organization’ seriously? She pondered as she tried to side step him but again, he always knew how to grab her attention.

Her door was beyond him but with a look, her heart fluttered, and she wanted to twist him around and smooch him until the Killing Game ending, if…that could happen and if he would enjoy it, and maybe even then, he could lie about it.

“You promised after all.”

“Okay, I did, so? Not like I like it sometimes.”

“You’re lying.”

Damn

“Fine. I’ll give you that-what do you want?”

He yanked on her exposed writs and dragged her willing body, and with a triumphal push, she was inside his room-his disjoined and disheveled room.

“Funny, how, you wanted this.” His voice crept behind her head.

“K-Kokichi…”

“I hope you will feel the same about me as you do with Shuichi.”

He knew, too.

“Oh, you can change my heart? Good luck with that.”

“You want it.”

Goddamn it.

Could she strike him now? Could she pivot around and slap some sense into him?

“It’s okay.” He whispered touching the tips of her curls and there wasn’t a recoil, but rather a welcoming embrace from behind with his weight put fully on her shoulders; as she had to remember that she was under 5 foot and he could overpower it simply for being over her height-just slightly. He was quite delicate, almost calming on her rapid breathing.

Could he really have this side?

Almost, she could feel his breath and the desire to melt into him, felt completely possible but she had to shape up and not fall for this, after all he could be lying and her, being so lead by her own heart, made her the worst gullible person there was; and he could exploit this.

“If you’re messing with me…”

“What if I say, I’m not?”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was-I wish I could take back those lies-but here, my second in command, know that you will surrender yourself to me…neehee-hee.”

So childish and yet…she couldn’t put any fingers down on him, almost as if he was avoiding her own touch but why? Why claim to care, maybe even love, if to avoid the most personal and intimate aspects of human relations.

She couldn’t stay here-no, no, but she propelled herself from his gaze and even intended trap and landed squarely on his bed, exhausted, her hands covering her head.

One heartbeat.

One moment of delight.

For a lifetime, she didn’t speak-it was broken in her-the voice that she had was useless and while, Kokichi quietly examined her, she couldn’t deny his appeal. He wasn’t exactly a ‘bad boy’ but rather someone with an aura of deepening lies and canals of truth under the despair of those lies. He needed, he wanted to either be understood or misunderstood the rest of his life, so why come to her?

Why a mystery?

“He warned you, didn’t you?”

“Y-Yes. I believe in Shuichi and especially after the first class trial.”

“Ah. You got the wrong first impression of me as I was merely doing what I could to save our lives. Isn’t that appreciated?”

“I never said it wasn’t-just the way you went about it…it was even markedly cruel, even, asinine.”

“You think that about me? Do you will intend to follow others’ all your life?”

“What?”

Completely off guard and yet, it was true-at least partly-what she did remember faintly was the name calling and lastly the whole obeying others that went against her nature; so why did it sting when Kokichi kept constantly touching it?

“Do you think you’ll always hide yourself in your lies forever or are you afraid to be yourself? Are you afraid of being understood by anyone?”

“That’s why you’re here. You know my secrets.”

She snorted.

“I hardly-barely know anything about you-”

“You do. You’ve guessed it, didn’t you?”

“Stop bullshitting with me, Kokichi-I don’t have time for lies or deception that you’re pulling. I should have never-”

Another wishful moment, and for a second, she could exhaust her entire life and still wouldn’t be fully coherent to him, even to herself, but with a tug, he used those same curls to whip her into submission and back onto him. Her head now, hidden up against his chest and her hair, now being the barrier and all he did was brush his fingers in that wild hair and grasp her head.

“Didn’t I tell you? You’re all mine.” He said in a very menacing manner, but it wasn’t directed to her but the general atmosphere and to the thoughts that kept plaguing her. “You’ve given me your answer, too, and I expect you to stay that way. Keep your promises.”

“You do the same.”

“Oh, I’m not lying there. I will keep my promises to you-”

“Kokichi.”

Just say something. Just say anything more, but were the guesses in the dark this time? Was she doing something wrong? Could she leave?

“Stay.”

Now the scene was changing with his hand on the door and her between with eyes widening and recognizing his voice so much clearer.

Stay.

That was enough.

Hovering further, she gripped his overarching arm, and brought his hand to her cheeks as she brushed her lips on the softest part of the palms, and then finally leaning on them.

“Maybe, I could fall in love with you…maybe, but don’t get any ideas, but I will stay-as long as you want me to.”

**_Stay forever._ **

That’s what his eyes and heart were declaring so openly and flamboyantly, but now, she wanted more-she desired him-but with stars in her eyes, she brought him closer and hugged him warmly, while tippy toeing upwards.

“We’re still in a Killing Game, after all-”

If love could bloom in no man’s land, where were the limits to what it could do? Could it change the world or have her believe in him so much that they’d travel the roadless trials together? Those class trials?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listened to : Stay by Lisa Loeb, Memories of You from Persona 3 OST, Layer Cake from Persona 5 OST and Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer


	5. Face Myself

Stay away from him.

**_Yeah_. Right.**

Ayumi hid the secret meetings with Kokichi to herself and the fluttering way wards of her unfretted heart; But with leaving the guilt behind, she couldn’t fester in her own prison anymore and would be forced to take more steps into the world.

This world.

This academy.

“You’re awfully cheery this morning, but that’s what we need.” Kaito announced being awfully stupid in an infectious way but she took a glance and Kokichi wasn’t there. Why would he?

“H-Hey.” Shuichi said, inviting her to sit with him.

“Heya, Shuichi! I see, that things are interesting this morning.” And by this, she meant the discussions being carried out with Kirumi, the Ultimate Maid and the requests given to her by the various Ultimates, but of course, this would happen. It always did when one talent helped others.

“Heya! Small tits! Whatcha doing with that stupid Kokichi!?”

“My tits are perfectly proportional by my height-if anything, you have too much on top and less in your head.” Ayumi snapped at Miu, the always vulgar Ultimate Inventor and that shrunk her-how else than insults could do that?

“It’s none of your business, honestly.”

“Funny, how the small fries go together.”

“I said. SHUT UP.”

“Now Now. Gonta don’t want fighting.”

“What a pain.” Himiko muttered.

“Males are degenerates after all, and he’s the worse.” Tenko, the Ultimate Neo Aikido Master replied after, as if this was an assembly line of opinions being strung together.

“H-He’s not those things!” Ayumi fought the dry lump in her throat but it wasn’t enough to feel embarrassed that she would stick up for someone she agreed to be with eternity, or at least until they both died, here.

“Oh really? You and him, doing it!?” Miu howled in her uproarious manner and all, Ayumi could do was be speechless, but she was aware of the Ultimate’s eyes.

“You surely…can’t?” Kiibo said filling in the blanks.

“And even if I was, it still isn’t your fucking business. Who I fuck and don’t, isn’t anyone’s business-and besides, I do the fucking, not him,”

“Wow, brave and vulgar words from a second in command.” Kokichi had strolled in, almost fancying himself to the unfolding situation. “That’s not what you said last night.”

Without a simple gesture following, she forwarded herself and took Kokichi by his checkered bandana, stringing him up this time in front of others.

“You’ll regret those words.” She threatened between her teeth, but he with a smirk, broke it up and she had to accept that.

Why did she? She could pummel him, now, pummel him into the ground, but while being sadistic, she had limits to what she did in public-in front of people, and besides, she liked this little shit, too much. Loved? Not yet, but last night wasn’t a memory far off but scattering pages of a novel. Scattering pages that she couldn’t quite pick up and assemble together, yet, unlike yesterday, he wasn’t shy in being vocal in his recruitment of her.

“Miu, please give her respect, or else,” His single finger went up to his face and again, his demeanor changed, and Miu stepped back. “it will be the last thing you’ll do.”

“H-Hey.” Miu whimpered, completely domesticated.

“Besides, it’s really between Ayumi and I, riiiiiight? She’s mine and thus, she’s my responsibility and I can’t have you disrespecting you…”

“It’s a lie, isn’t it?”

“Noooope. I intend to keep her as my second in command of my Evil Organization, and besides, she has the knowledge and even nature to be cruel, too.”

Great. Now, everyone would be terrified of her.

“She deserves better than a little creep than you.” Kaito said righteously looking after her. “I don’t know how you’ve brainwashed her into your bidding, but let me say-”

“Have feelings for her, Kaito? Then, if not, shut it.” Kokichi said harsher than ever.

“This is quite problematic…” Kiibo mumbled.

“As if you have feelings, yourself.” Kaito retorted.

The faces dropped when Kokichi took Ayumi by her waist and put a kiss on her, thus putting the expectations from them on her-but this time, she felt the smothering sexual tension imparted in those lips of his’ and she found the will to return it back.

Her hands searching and combing through his locks, and bringing him more forthcoming, but only then, did she hear a pause in him and his face lightened up. “I see, that you’re falling for me.”

“K-Kokichi..Oma…” She muttered softly and while, no one else heard them, they parted with only lasting memories.

“Seeeeeeeee, I mean what I say. Neehee-hee.”

“This is most disturbing.” Kiibo said again.

“Oh, unable to process those emotions, are you? Robots can’t understand complexity or love.”

“HEY! Stop with your Robophobic remarks, Kokichi!”

“Is that what you call it, Kokichi!?” Kaito said wrapping up his hand into that mighty fist, and for the first time, blows were nearly exchanged. “Gonna keep lying to her, aren’t you!?”

“You sure seem invested in her…Kaito. Are you..jealous or is Shuichi the one to be jealous?”

“W-What?”

“That’s right, Shuichi, I’ve won against you.”

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about Kokichi.”

Finding a voice, she snatched Kokichi’s hand, surprising him, slightly. “Stop! Regardless of how you feel and even if he’s lying-I don’t care and if you have a problem, Kaito and anyone else, I don’t intend to play nice about it.”

**He wasn’t.**

“Yeah…sorry, Ayumi.”

“Thank you for having my best interests and even, I am prepared if this little shit breaks my stupid heart.”

**He wouldn’t.**

After the words, everyone began to go their separate ways and she found herself still holding Kokichi’s hand tightly and he didn’t recoil, just standing so still.

“If I said, I was…does that mean, I admit defeat?”

“Yes.”

“I wish it was a lie, but I’ll do the best to make you happy-that is my promise, my leader.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep you safe.” He responded.

“Kokichi…I love you.”

“Yup, I already know.”

Kisses followed and she tippy toed back to his height, before being spun as if they were dancing, but she always ended up in those arms, staring back at him, breathlessly.

If this was an elaborate…it was a beautiful one and from one she didn’t wish to break immersion, and maybe this whole Killing Game wouldn’t exist here, at least from what they stood in; but why had she stood out in Kokichi’s mind? She did argue a whole lot during the trial and all bringing forth calculated ideas, but they were quite extraordinary ones.

And she always butted head with Kokichi…

_“Trust…is only what you make of it, and while, I detest Kokichi’s implications, we have to look at the evidence, whether we want to do or not—Trust is only as far as you can take it, and that’s why trusting others is a gamble.”_

_“Well said.” Kokichi smirked, but Ayumi shook her head, ignoring the feisty if downright terrifying Supreme Leader._

_“I rather not spare anyone’s feelings here and live instead-I’m sorry, Shuichi-but you have to be braver than this. You have to-we all do, if we wanna live.”_

 

 

 

“Y-You’re-”

“I’m sorry about Kokichi-”

“You deserve better.” Kaito mumbled and Ayumi couldn’t hold back and actually patted his back, while Shuichi felt even more bewildered.

“Don’t be so jealous, Kaito.”

“I’m NOT JEALOUS! I am looking out for you.”

Shuichi laughed a bit, the first she heard from him since the whole Killing Game started.

“That’s what I love to hear. Sweet, Shuichi actually amused by us-maybe enjoying this? I don’t know, but you’re a funny dude, Kaito Momota.”

“OF COURSE! I am Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

“You know that astronauts are pretty cool and maybe one day, you’ll be in the history books, you know?”

“Of course! Space is what I aim for!”

“I’ve read about space, and it’s a pretty daunting place and maybe one place, I could never visit, though it isn’t likely that I can visit many places with books in my face.”

“Regardless, I was telling Shuichi, here, that we should train our bodies to shape our minds. You’re welcome to join.”

“When would it be?”

“At night.”

“Okay then!”

“J-Just like that?” Shuichi asked, folding his hands delicately to his side, but with those hands, Ayumi had to remember that she made the promise to forget about her feelings…and as they dimmed, she had no questions to the answers that were leading up.

Only up from here. Only up.

“Maybe, you two can get close.” Kaito winked.

“Did you forget about this morning, KAITO!?” Ayumi screamed trying to play hit him, but he easily dodged and fell on his back, to the unknown sky, and that’s how it had to be-they had to find the laughter in a impossible situation. A horrifying situation.

The laughter continued until later when she heard the night announcement and she exited her dorm room, but like all clear nights, no one was really up, and she was afraid of bumping into Kokichi…to be alone with him…what would happen if they got rid of all restraints?

And was being second in command code for girlfriend? He certainly was an interesting fellow.

Could she even call him her boyfriend? Certainly, a relationship was established and yet, he didn’t seem like the type of guy to actually care about those things, was he?

“Ayumi.”

“K-Kokichi!” She exclaimed and he without hesitation, took her away again to his dorm and she heartedly fell flat on his bed-his cramped room, and while, he was stiff-did he know what to do with a girl, like herself? She must have been intimidating-romantically and while she wasn’t a total looker with faint pink hair draping to past the midpoint of her back, her curls powerful.

“Do you want me or not?” She found herself as the speaker of the heart, the rapid movement of his eyes to her and to his bed.

Lacking, even sexual charm but reading on the powerful ways to seduce someone, she would put it on practice. Her legs were spread but crossing, and her arms were holding her back, her hair now half in the front and back, and finally, her face glistened as her breasts were prominent.

“It’s okay.” She broke character and he jumped at the opportunity to sit next to her, but still so guarded.

“Ayumi.” He wordlessly mumbled.

“Is the Supreme Leader out of words? Out of lies?”

“Can you go?”

She recognized the uncomfortableness and immediately trudged out, thinking at what she did wrong. Her tears spraying out once she slammed the door and throwing herself face first.

How was she ever going to reach him?

How despairing that she couldn’t connect at his level and knowing that this relationship might be a dud-why had his tune changed? Wasn’t he laughing harmoniously with her in the morning and then being so tender last night?

“H-hey-”

“Is that you, Shuichi?” She called out when she heard the door ring and then straightened up her story and tears…and the Ultimate Detective was sure immaculate in his emotions, and yet, concern had flooded his face once she opened up.

“Don’t cry.” He said empathically.

“Huh?”

“I’m here…if you need me.”

“It-It’s…Kokichi…I don’t know how…” She gasped in between the sobs that were coming faster than she liked.

“I think it’s time to thank you for everything that you’ve tried and done for me since Kaede’s…death. I really appreciate you trying to cheer me up and honestly, it’s been better since you and Kaito…really both of you are trying so hard to help me and I cannot seem to help myself, but that’s besides the point, really. I think I’ve been ignoring my feelings, too, but I don’t believe that Kokichi is a good fit for you in the slightest and tonight proves it.”

“It’s as if you are confessing to me.” She half joked.

“I-I am.”

“S-Shuichi…” Tears were aching through her eyes, and each time, she tried to close them, he just happened to kiss them away-his love was different than Kokichi’s by the slightest, but guilt still floored her. She was still a rebound and yet, he was suffering and she would too, if she continued down this way with him.

“I want you to like me as me, not a replacement for Kaede.”

“I-I do.”

“It’s a lie.”

“Don’t sound like Kokichi, now.” He advised in a more authoritarian voice and by that, he strung his awkward kisses towards her future, and she wanted briefly to forget, again, but she resisted.

“Also, I promised my heart to someone-Kokichi Oma and whether or not, he returns those affections in private…I don’t know. I really don’t, but I know that I can’t go back on my promise to make him happy and loved, however I can do it.”

“I understand. I’m sorry to have annoyed you, Ayumi.”

“W-Wait! S-Shuichi…”

“Ayumi?” She wanted to slam the door but walking straight in was Kokichi, and his befuddled expression, but he had his hands overturned, palms open, almost in a daze.

“I did it, didn’t I? I probably broke his damn heart, but, I have…listen, Kokichi, if, you don’t want to-”

“If I don’t what?” Another take of inescapable smooches and then tearing off of his shirt as the door shut behind. “Say , ‘it’s a lie’? It isn’t. I wasn’t sure…”

She noticed how scrawny and pale he was, but even so, he was handsome and vulnerable, and with a stroke with the back of his hand, shivers went sent to her feet, and soon, she toppled over.

He fell too, he certainly fell and now, she could face herself.

 


	6. Heaven

Waking up half naked, she found herself snuggling close to Kokichi, but what could transpire made her blush deeply. He too, was shirt less, but she realized that perhaps nothing like sex happened and she was glad as he was still trying to reconcile his own thoughts and if sex was thrown in, it would be another casualty of complication.

Another one he didn’t need and besides, why give in fully to complex things?

Another hormonal action but it was overwhelming as her hands trailed his chest, almost taking in the pulse and coolness that he emitted, trailing and trailing till her hands could not go further, but even as her hands were detaching,

“Don’t go.” He mumbled half asleep. “Keep going.”

And with a guiding hand from him, absently mindlessly, her fingers clasped the biggest part of him and it was thudding and stiffening.

“Don’t be afraid.” He cooed. “I want this.”

“K-Kokichi.” She gasped.

Another force of hand and she was feeling the tip of his cock, and her cheeks burnt increasingly fast, but he found himself awake and piling over her and she sprawled like she’d never been before; And she was helpless but in a better way and experiencing the wetting in her as the desire was pulsating through the inner of her body.

 _Was_ this really going to happen?

 _Was_ he prepared?

 _Was_ she?

Starting at the base of her neck, his lips touched down and unlike her earlier, his pecks were random and soon evolved into passionate sucking of the skin and kisses thus drawing life back into her. The Killing Game an illusion but with this upstaging, his heart was in the right place, and like before, he made his intentions clear; No ‘it’s a lie’ nonsense but as her eyes wandered, she was drawn into his purple hair, and taking a sharp intake of air, there was comfort there. There was a familiarity, and there was no way she could be intimate with anyone but him.

Her promises coming to fruition and his own mysterious; What he wanted from her, what he yearned for was a piece of love, affection, and while he tasted it then, he wanted to devour it wholly, but would it be his folly to have it all?

This jewel.

This stunning jewel of human interactions, of love.

Of unwavering wanting could be their downfall and yet, she couldn’t hold in the precious moaning that turned him more on as he frantically went further down, prodding and examining her now fully exposed body.

Slowly, he was between her legs and she felt his sloppy tongue rolling deep in her, and she had to take the initiative and yank the ends of his hair, all so hard, all so done. He only increased intensity till, she was now on the edge of him now peering so tall, his cock so large and thick that she had to turn her head to avoid the shame of how tiny she was inside. Could she even please him? The human side of him?

His hands twisted her head back to his gaze.

His purple eyes swirling.

“Never look away.”

“K-Kokichi-”

“Shhh, let me have this. Let me **have** you.” He smiled in that all not so honest way, but he wasn’t jesting but sure of his abilities to please her, too. “Ayumi.” His voice was growing hoarse.

Her tongue was now overlapping his, and then with a quiet determination, he thrusted in, and she had to hide the screams in her mouth. The pleasurable screams that had her rocking inside.

Without human interaction, without human instinct, would he be able to do this? Would he be able to yield to his deepest depths? No, they all knew how it went, and soon, her eyes were intensely trying to keep up with the blurring view of his face but like a crescendo, she flew higher and then with a certain calm following the crash of throbbing hearts, loudly sounding in her ears.

With a final wave, he pulled out and sprayed all his cum on her and she gladly fell into a trap of the uttermost importance. She fell to him.

Her eyes falling.

Her eyes closing.

He kept his’ open and then shut them once he fell besides her, reaching and snatching her in one fell swoop. Shaken up, she calmly accepted the inevitable of tangled and entwining desires and even hearts at this point. Even hearts.

It was the closest to heaven that she’d even been to-and love was that stepping stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Jewel and M by Ayumi Hamasaki


	7. Love Has Its Forms

Ayumi had tried to bother Shuichi but feeling the pangs of rejection-maybe as he was a gentle soul, she knew that perhaps that he would be avoiding her, yet, could she be wrong? She didn’t see the Ultimate Detective anywhere-in the dining room or the hallways. Why would he wait for her? She did shatter any thoughts of his heart reaching those heights, though, she couldn’t put it past him to put on a brave face.

Could he be in the courtyard? It was an extremely daunting place to search for anyone and while she wasn’t any private eye, she at least thought she could run into Kaito or anyone that was close to Shuichi but no luck and even Kokichi was harder to pin down. Where did he go?

She only saw him at night and in his dorm room which, they now both shared because none of that was prohibited in the Monopads, and Monokuma, whom, she knew to be watching didn’t care. If anything, they were being watched fully and yet, even as they continually made love almost every night, it was still a spectacle to experience. Still heaven bound.

They still talked, and both tried to understand each other more but she honestly was stumped with his constant lying, although now, she was becoming accustomed to ‘It’s a lie!’ line and she even sang it instead of saying it with him, and this amused him greatly.

Lying wasn’t necessarily bad but in fact, used everyday and soon, Shuichi, if ever found, would employ it.

“Have you seen Shuichi?” She asked everyone even the creepy Ultimate Anthropologist Kiyo but quickly backed down when he started rambling about his talents and which, she already read about extensively, as being the Ultimate Bibliophile had benefits of going to every area and so she was well rounded.

“Why are you asking for him~?”

“Oh, Kokichi!” She exclaimed putting her arms around his head and squeezing him tight to her breasts.

No resistance except complete bliss in this attention.

He smirked after gently pulling her off.

“No reason…”

“You’re lying again.”

“Fine. I feel terrible for breaking the poor boy’s heart.”

“You care too much about people’s feelings. You need to worry about yours.”

“I already am starting to and you’re helping me do it.”

“Neehee-hee, my caring Ayumi and she lies, too. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Yes. Proud.

She’s always found comfort in lies that were to her liking, to her reality and being with a pathological liar like Kokichi Oma, really shone through her own shortcomings but his were a defense mechanism that she picked up on after spending the most time with him. He really detested the Killing Game and often refused to discuss it other than the reality that it would happen again. Why were they so alike and yet, she used her talent to hide and lies for him.

“But you know,” His signature pose with his finger to his mouth and the eager look in his eyes. “you make me wanna stop lying, but nah, that’s a lie.”

“I’m happy that you’re always yourself.”

“Ayumi.” He said straightening up.

“Yes?”

“Why is it so important to care about Shuichi?”

Jealous, much?

She lied again.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s BS. You definitely know.”

“It’s because I feel that connection from Kaede to him and I even still…miss her, but I have a question for you and whether you lie or not-do you intend to keep calling me your second in command forever? And instead call me your girlfriend?”

“Noooope.”

“Thank you for confirming, then. Boyfriend.” She said deadpan.

And like that, he ran, and she couldn’t help but burst into laughter as he continued playing with her. So how far was he going with this? Could be fun depending on who and what was at the end.

Stop feeling this way. Stop being trapped with just one person, stop it.. _stop it._

And stop worrying about that clueless idiot Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective.

Her head was spinning once but some fine adjustments with her palms, the dizziness left, and she continued outside, the Courtyard just shone what she couldn’t ever be. A light in the darkness for anyone, and with some heavy steps, she didn’t think that her feelings had been settled and even worse, there was a rumbling in her stomach-the anxiety of bidding farewell to what she always believed in.

“You still deserve better.”

And those were the words that were meant to be said by the Ultimate Astronaut and instead it was coming from Shuichi’s lips.

“Why? Do you mean to stomp on my heart while you remain sad about Kaede? My heart isn’t a fiddle and yet, you try-you continue,”

“You’re the ONE bringing up Kaede!” Shuichi shouted and if there had been birds then they would have scattered by the screech left behind in his broken voice. “I’m not anymore. I have to move on…and seeing you with Kokichi… _hurts_.”

“I know everyone is concerned but, I am fine, honestly-”

“Can’t you see that he’ll lie to your heart while being all charming!? He’s going to hurt you, and in the ways he want.”

No, that wasn’t the case and yet, the lump wouldn’t go away.

“He would never…”

“Can you believe that lie? I won’t ever do anything on purpose to hurt you, Ayumi.”

“Shuichi, it isn’t that hard. I’ve already given myself away to him.”

He looked ashamed as if contemplating that he had lost, but knowing, him, the Ultimate Detective wouldn’t give up for the truth, even if lies were on the surface.

“I k-know.” He said sheepishly

“Shuichi-I’m sorry, but everyone needs to really stop telling me what I should do-”

“I meant what I said last night. I do love you, Ayumi. I want the best for you and Kokichi Oma isn’t. He’s a liar and just a terrible human being. He loves this Killing Game and-”

“That isn’t true! He doesn’t-he hates it-”

“Is that the only way you think you can convince me? He said that to you, right? He’s lying and he’ll break you.”

“OOOH is that what the daring Ultimate Detective thinks?”

Kokichi Oma stepped from behind Shuichi, so casually, but the expression was dangerous and one that turned his face into something horrifying-the face of a killer or worse.

“I’m not scared of you, Kokichi.”

“I wasn’t asking that, Shuichi…but I can’t stand by and let you bully my girlfriend.”

By now, curious shouts had drawn a few of the classmates including Kiibo, Himiko, Tenko, and a few others that Ayumi had a challenging time seeing beyond her sea of tears. No, it had to be happy tears. Happy Tears. Happy ones.

“It wouldn’t be surprising if you were lying to catch us off guard.”

“You see, she’s truly worth changing over, and that’s no lie and I pride myself on my lies, too. It’s just I can’t when I’m with her.”

“It’s your lie, Kokichi.”

Changing over? Wasn’t he lying that he would earlier unless he meant it? She had to read him better, but at least he called her his ‘girlfriend’ without hesitation. He would change for her? Why wasn’t he lying to win this? He could easily but for the first given moment, he let the mask slip to the world, in front of Shuichi, and then, back to her, and he only did that seldom in private.

“Even if you don’t believe it from my lips-I would never do anything purposely to hurt her, and I swear it upon the lies I had you all believing. And so, to insist that I would do that, makes me you seem like you don’t know me at all, Shuichi. I’m disappointed.”

“W-What!”

“Kokichi…he doesn’t mean to be-”

“I don’t care what he means to be. He has no right to make you cry.” Kokichi’s voice was sharp and he was placing his hands around Shuichi’s neck…

“Kokichi! Please!” Ayumi screamed rushing to pull Shuichi out and contain Kokichi’s fury-if anything, she didn’t want this harmony to be disrupted between them all. No amount of love triangles or drama should be in the Killing Game as it only led to jealously, and that ended up being murder and the agony of the class trials were on her, and the memories were too fresh.

“If this is how it’s going to be…I want no part in it. I refuse to let another murder happen.” She declared wobbling.

“A-Ayumi.” Shuichi said meekly.

“And I refuse to let this tear us apart. I am just trash compared to everyone here and not worth fighting for.”

“Don’t say that!” Kokichi found his rage rising.

“Y-Yeah, don’t. It’s not true at all, Ayumi.” Shuichi added in.

“I’m s-sorry for being a drama queen…I’m sorry…this is why I rather like books than people…I’m sorry…”

 **“AYUMI!”** The cries of both Kokichi and Shuichi reverberated through her ears as she stumbled into the dorms but crumpling up at her door, unable to breathe-the anxiety completely overriding her and then shutting down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listened to Danganronpa 1, 2 and V3 OSTs


	8. Murder is Always Possible

With determination

With the deteriorating hearts around her, she began to see in these multiple dreams of days long passed, of feelings abandoned and futures everlasting, and even as she wanted to, she couldn’t take the hand of either Shuichi or Kokichi but, she could be afar, observing, waiting till she was ready have the love she deserved. They only deserved something for their malice, patience and lastly, anger.

Was it possible to feel warmth through the troubles and worries of everyday life?

Swimming, she saw images-faces, blank faces of people in her own heart.

“Shuichi?”

“Kokichi?”

Her voice was nullified by the echo that she couldn’t quite grasp, but strength, with coincidence gave her a reason to repaint the situation and regain her voice.

**Monokuma**

She squeezed the maniacal headmaster bear, lovingly, longingly, but was this her dream? Why was it swirling?

“HEY!”

“Oh! Sorry!”

“H-Hey don’t you…”

“Please, don’t punish me! I was dreaming and needed…I don’t know what I needed.”

“Be careful next time!”

And like that, Monokuma took his exit and she sat up in bed, her room, unsure of all where all the vertigo was coming from and how she ended up in here at all. She remembered in flashes, that she had confronted Shuichi and then…Kokichi…

“Oh my god.” She whispered, clutching her chest and doubling over in screams-crying screams, and she heard banging almost immediately as her sobs intensified. They knew that ringing the door bell was useless and doing this-banging could get her out of this misery-this despair and make her look at happier times.

“Ayumi, please answer.”

“Shuichi.” She muttered.

“W-We’re worried about you…we all are…”

“Where’s Kokichi?”

“I don’t know-I haven’t seen him in a few hours. He left after you did.”

“I didn’t really want to hear that.”

Where had he gone? She struggled to pull the information out of her head, but she knew the looks that he had given Shuichi in her stead.

“Are you worried about him?”

“Of course-I hope he’s-”

“You really do love him, don’t you?”

Did Shuichi want to be loved in that way?  Was he admitting to something else-maybe an apology or would he continued to say otherwise?

“I really wish you wouldn’t have gotten involved with him, but I can’t stop you and I realize that I can’t and…”

“Apology accepted.”

“Huh?”

“You were apologizing for being completely insensitive, right?”

“Y-Yes. Now will come on out? Breakfast is being served by Kirumi.”

Slowly with quiet footsteps, she adjusted herself and opened the door, and while she was awaiting a lot of faces, she only got Shuichi-ah, he was the spokesperson and they certainly couldn’t ask Kokichi as more of them hated him.

“I wanna find Kokichi-”

“You need to eat.  You’ve been in bed for a few hours now.”

“That long…I don’t remember much…”

“Gonta helped you into your room but Kokichi-as I’ve said before, left, and I haven’t seen him since.”

She sighed, and wobbling a bit, took hold of Shuichi’s elbow, as support and then the scene changed, and she saw everyone left gathered even Kokichi, but he wasn’t the least bit worried nor was looking her way.

He was an odd one and while she wanted to hold him, if only to caress his hair, she resisted any urge and lied to herself that it was pointless and useless. Lies. Lies that only she could tell herself and believe, but a flicker of emotion passed in Kokichi’s eyes when he finally saw her.

“Ayumi! What are you-!?” Came from Shuichi, but it was already too late, she had gotten the pain to the furthest levels that she could and just impulsively jumped, jumped into an embrace with him, nuzzling her head and then glancing up, tears welling on the sides of her cheeks. But she didn’t care. If Kokichi was lying then, about everything, and everything meant nothing…

Her screaming sobs came back and rocked her and Shuichi.

It was a lie, wasn’t it? Love was, and yet, she was claiming it couldn’t be anymore, could it?

“It’s not a lie.”

“K-Kokichi…” Shuichi muttered refusing to entertain her pain, but also not comforting her lest it upset Kokichi more. “H-Hey, I know that things were said but, she’s hurting.”

“It’s her own fault, really.”

“That’s how you will be towards her? I guess, I was right in my assumptions that you were a terrible choice for her. I’ll take it from here.”

And slowly, Shuichi’s hands enveloped in the quieter Ayumi’s flowing hair.

“Take your hands off her, or lest you want to die.”

“Aren’t you going to kill us all anyways? What does it matter?”

“You misunderstand me completely, Shuichi. You both, do.”

“It seems like you don’t want to be loved or even understood, and after all, she gave you everything-and I mean everything-body and heart-”

“SHE DID WHAT?! THEY DID WHAT!?” Miu shouted wildly almost fulfilled in her vulgar insanity.

“Yeah, that’s no way to treat a lady, Kokichi!” Kaito’s fist was raised yet again but it was in this rage that tensions boiled over. “You are really scum.”

“Kokichi, stay away from her.”

“OOOOOH, the big bad Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, the Ultimate Girlfriend Stealer.”

“Stop, Shuichi.” Ayumi’s tiny voice was returning but it was weak and trying to sustain it more was paining her.

“This is a Killing Game. Love doesn’t matter-”

“It matters to me!” A unison bounced off the walls and further into her heart-Kokichi and Shuichi.

“I love you, Ayumi.”

Expecting Shuichi to say that but turning to see it was Kokichi with conviction, and that blank look, that honest way of telling where his heart was going, and where it could end up to. She saw the gaze that shook her.  It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a lie and even though she enjoyed Shuichi’s concern and anyone’s else’s, she knew what her mind was telling her, and what two moments couldn’t be wrong. It couldn’t incorrect. It couldn’t be impossible to lie about what love was about.

“Ahhh love triangles’ are so cliched!”

“Monokuma.” Maki, the Ultimate Caregive vehemently snapped, as if seeing this bear was indeed bad luck-of course, he was the headmaster of this said Academy of Killing; and boy was Monokuma looking quite sweaty and even blushing in his almost frantical and cute way, but there was nothing about this ‘cute’ bear that could be defined as a good thing as he was responsible for the kicking off of the Killing Game.

Everyone was on edge, naturally.

“So steamy…but alas, it’s good for television, and…leaves me…a-ahh..”

“You’re disgusting.” Ayumi said breaking out of her funk entirely and showing the very same repulsive glance that everyone couldn’t afford to because they were mostly furious and even obstinate or worse-terrified. Horrified. Bewildered.

“Oh, can’t help those horny teens…I tell you, but as the headmaster, I allow this because this love jealously always ends in **MURDER!!”**

So, this was a show, too, and knowing that all she did with Kokichi was watched, made her sicker and sicker, till the urge to vomit was watering in her mouth, and Shuichi let go as she just doubled over and retched. God, it had been a long time since she did that, though she had nothing in her stomach and ended up suffering with a very sore throat that again hindered her ability to speak at all.

Back to square one with that.

Yeah. Like how he wanted.

Good job for Monokuma.

“I-Is that all you wanted to say?”

** “RISE AND SHINE, URSINE!”  **

The four Monokubs-each varying in color and personality still were Monokuma clones and only served the purpose of perpetuating the Killing Game. Goddamn it. This was madness and they had to have known this, but it still indefinitely felt like hell. It _was_ **hell.**

“What the hell do you want?” Kaito demanded.

“We’ve come bearing gifts! Pardon the pun!”

“We don’t want them.” Shuichi declared. “Especially, if it leads to anymore murders.”

“Ooooh, that’s the fun part, isn’t it? These kubs get their way and we just start killing each other.” Kokichi said delighted, almost reveling on this but with a glance-the lies were on him and Ayumi wanted to say more but with a more dignified gesture to her throat.

Clutching her throat as if she was choking herself.

“H-Hey! Don’t do that!” Shuichi took a step to retake her, but it was in vain.

“Ayumi,” Kokichi’s voice was gentler perhaps, as his fingers laced into hers’ and slowly unraveled her grip. “It’s okay.” He whispered low to her. “I have you now.”

He certainly did and soon, she became flustered and brushed any other contact from him, and he didn’t take it personally at all judging from his reaction.

The gifts were given to them all-though they were weird and in no way could fit into this academy but with the strange logic here, anything went even if explanations weren’t on hand. If science and logic didn’t matter.

"Keep an eye on her, Kokichi.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Shuichi. She is my girlfriend, after all.” Another pose, one of indifference to Shuichi’s concerns.

“W-Why…”

“Still makes you jealous, huh?”

“That’s not what I am saying-You know it isn’t, Kokichi and why are you antagonizing me?”

“No reason at all.”

“There is always a reason!”

And like that, she couldn’t stand it anymore and quickly exited as again the nausea was coming up through her throat and nose.


	9. Someone's Theme

Then as swirling memories flooded Ayumi, she tried to faintly see where Kokichi or anyone could be, but it was no use when everything was changing her. Transforming her mind and it all happened with the so-called Flashback Light that was found by Shuichi and Angie, and as Monokuma (if he could be trusted which was nil) said that the previous memories stolen from them would be given back.

Still, she remembered running from something called ‘The Ultimate Hunt’…what in the hell was that? What was all the price of inconsolable anger? Sorrow? Sorrow pounding and jamming on the keys of a broken piano, hitting strings that no longer connected, but still, after the head ache inducing storm of memories, she felt herself falling, and falling into a connect abyss but like always, hands always helped her. Why was she so helpless?

Hands that she adored, and caressed her rough and oily skin but even so, it was enough for her to dramatically take the moments together, piece by piece and have the whole reality shift back into being. They were back in the gym and in this hellish Academy.

“I remember now…” Shuichi said for everyone. “The Ultimate Hunt.”

“I remembered it too!” Kiibo responded after a long pause. “But what does it mean? And who is hunting us? Did we get caught?”

“Kokichi…my supreme leader, sorry about this…I weigh a ton, I know.”

“I quiteee like that nickname but, Yumi don’t fret, I have you, you know?”

So enigmatic even in the face of this insurmountable fate that was loss in their hand and no ace could save them. No amount of betting or gambling could untie those red strings from each other and this Academy. They were destined to be here and forced into this perverted game of murder and suspicion.

Even lovers could stab each other in the back and with Kokichi’s mentality-no, he was against the Killing Game, correct? He said so briefly but even that, she recalled the white board in his room and the pictures of his classmates and even the little notes around them. Calculations at who and what the killers could become and what they were capable of.

Please always, she thought. Please, always, again in her mind as she didn’t want him as her enemy or even lose him to this twisted nightmare inducing migraine of hell. No, it was purgatory, and they were damned to be here and never knowing any semblance of tranquility. They were dead, right? They were dead?

No, she certainly had felt Kokichi’s body pressing to herself and even though, he was clothed, she could feel the tightening of his pants, but it was interrupted by the cold thrown reality and the crackling of Monokuma’s reveal.

The next Motive was coming, and whatever it stood to be, another murder would soon follow into the shadows and move into the bright glare of the light.

She didn’t want another murder nor find about humanity’s worsening traits, her own psyche couldn’t take it, but this was a game meant to last until only 2 people stood and glancing around to the now mostly filled room and knowing it wouldn’t be like this forever. Who would die? Who would live?

Why rely on people at all for this power? This ego trip?

“I have you, Yumi,”

Why did love transform a person? Why change him into a twisted and even unrecognizable version of himself? Of Kokichi Oma?

“I’m not entirely worried about that.” She whispered back, clutching his hand, so tight and so mightily frightened. Tremendously frightening and even that wasn’t the half of the gesture that she tried to play, tried to measure in the time after Monokuma’s departure. She had to feel for everyone and cry-do anything for it was all crushing her and them in the process, just watching everyone die so brutally and in uncertain ways, too and then leading to more death.

Could she stomach the dead bodies? Could she stop recalling Kaede’s swinging body?

She sobbed, and no one could console her as no solace in this Academy could do, and even, Shuichi was at a loss; but she had to be the speaker of hearts, the hearts that couldn’t heal and be wounded anymore but still tore and warped. Skewed, and ripped.

Blushing kisses on her cheeks was Kokichi’s main goal now but, even he with his talent didn’t matter-they were at the mercy of the people behind the Ultimate Hunt. The people wanting them to kill to survive and she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t be accosted by the idea again of those killings starting but they were at the initial stages and more hoops would be passed through by everyone especially her.

The rest of the morning was passed without incident, and she slowly made her trek through the courtyard following on the coattails of both Kaito and Shuichi. They both welcomed her.

“I’m telling you that our training sessions are helping you.” Kaito explained.

“You think so?”

“Remember, a strong body makes a strong mind, and that’s what you need.”

“I agree with that!” Ayumi responded.

Was awkwardness going to persist?

“Exactly! Even Ayumi agrees!”

“If she thinks so..”

“Think for yourself, Shuichi. You can’t always follow other people.”

“That’s quite sweet of you, Shuichi, but Kaito is right. We both have to follow what we think is right.”

And she knew exactly what Shuichi would be hinting at if he said anything-everyone was still worried and would continue to be so but did those sorts of things exist here? In deceit and even lies? Maybe that was a way to survive?

“Let me know when I have to beat up, Kokichi.”

“Kaito! Please no violence-I may be sadistic, but even I wouldn’t follow through on my own thoughts.”

“I wanna make sure that punk doesn’t break your heart.”

“I can manage it just fine.”

She was exhausted by this ‘concern’ and so apparently, it was realized that they didn’t hear it at the start, did they? Love was a big pain and the biggest lie of them-it fucking pained those involved? Has he ever been in love? Love made her a worse crybaby, and a worse person.

Has he ever?

He was the type to fall in love so easily like Shuichi-she could tell almost at once just by studying their personalities and it didn’t help that they were also so ‘good’, so what was she thinking when she was with Kokichi? Wasn’t he a ‘bad’ boy?

**No.**

Appearances weren’t the only veil covering their eyes and if they wanted to see the stars, they’d have to tear it off. They’d have to glimpse the sky high above them and recognize that they weren’t the only ones even if it seemed they could be in this Academy.

“Kiibo?”

“Ayumi! I need something explained to me.”

“Well, that’s sudden. I mean-I don’t know what I can say or explain to you when you can already on your own. I don’t want to be ‘robophobic’ but it’s a bit hard to say exactly anything without offending-”

“It’s about Kokichi-”

She frowned. Jesus Christ. It’s like everyone was her parents or something and getting it more from Kiibo, of all people seemed indescribably aggravating.

“Kiibo, if you’re going to just-”

“No. I want to know this ‘love’ you speak of. You two seem to possess it but even if I had studied it, I wouldn’t understand it much.”

“I can’t help you on that, Kiibo.”

“Ah! C’mon Ayumi! Help him out!” Kaito called from the back as he switched his focus on her then back to Shuichi. Goddamn it.

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“First off-how do you fall in love?”

“Kiibo, it just happens for people. Either it’s love at first sight or you just feel it happen naturally. Love is a fickle thing and can be either for good or bad. I can’t explain what is abstract.”

“I see, then love is uncontrollable? Is that why you and Kokichi…? I don’t mean to pry more as you are probably tired of this same subject, but everyone does care.”

“Maybe a bit too much.” She snapped.

“I am guessing you aren’t used to this sort of ‘caring’ from others?”

“I understand it but it’s beyond suffocating. I hate how I am being scrutinized like a child and being treated at such makes the worst tendencies come out in me.”

“I am sorry that the others are treating you in this manner, so, I won’t do the same.”

“Thank you, Kiibo. You’re not so bad and I can see why you’re the Ultimate Robot and yet, you have the thirst to know more about humanity. It seems like everyone wants to be human these days, when all I want to be is a rock.”

“Why is that?”

“Being a human can be a mess of a time. You’re held to ridiculous standards and such, and honestly, I’m tired of it sometimes, plus the whole unwanted harassment of others on my relationships. Feels like something I’ve dealt with before.”

“It can’t be helped, can it?”

“It can’t, but the funny thing is-You can’t choose who you fall in love with and the only saving happiness is if they feel the same about you but sometimes that won’t happen, but in my case, he was willing to be the one I need in these times and beyond, if I am lucky. I didn’t choose to fall in love, in fact love is just a chemical response in the brain but even then, we all do crazy things for love. We change for it for better or worse. We grow with it. We mature besides it and makes our bonds stronger.”

Flashes of happiness that couldn’t be. Flashes of home that never was and yet, she could imagine the possibilities of life outside this place and away from the horrors of the Killing Game. She could see the beach and Kokichi was there-so was Shuichi, Kaito and even Kiibo, and they were smiling, they were rolling around in the sand and making the impossible possible. What a life love could produce and what happiness could be like.

Perhaps, she couldn’t help it, but she controlled what happened next in her life, and she didn’t need others telling her otherwise, but the images of a life beyond here-beyond the sky was tempting.

“Why are you smiling?”

“One day, we should all go to the beach. All of us.”

“I take it that you like the beach?”

“I actually love it, Kiibo, and then I don’t want anything less than happiness afterwards. I want us to survive and just hold each other tight and never let our relationships die.”

“Is that your goal that you’re striving towards?”

“Yes, and who knows, I’ll get married and have kids-but even if I get ahead, I know what I feel is real and that it matters in the long run. Having goals helps me stay sane in this place and besides-I want to feel the full force of the happiness that will come.”

“Are you sure it will?”

“Even if it doesn’t, there is still happiness in the smallest of things.”

“Do you think that you can find it with Kokichi?”

“I sure to god hope that I can and even if my heart is broken…”

“Is that an outcome of love?”

“It can be and that’s the worst, it really is, but at the end of it all, Kiibo, know that we did try to do something meaningful and if we continue to participate in this Killing Game then, there is no hope and light for us.”

Her face darkened and she wept. She wept for the lost dreams and lives that were and will be casted aside for the sake of survival though she didn’t tell Kiibo that she abhorred humanity and its conflict. Its malice and worst of all, the death. She couldn’t stop pressing on that future and this moment to make anything feel better or even worse.

If no one wanted to cry, then she’d continue to do so. She’d shed the tears, the melancholic existence that she lived in.

She thought of ripping out the same eyes that cursed her as her vision was now blurring.

What comfort was there in this sick world? In this sickening life? This empheral life of hers?

“Don’t give up, Yumi.”

She didn’t have to react to the very familiar voice that now manifested in strength and support; and so, she took those same hands, and weaved her fingers through Kokichi’s and stood proudly as she could. Proudly as an Ultimate could be but that didn’t define her, that wasn’t her. Books meant nothing in this game and they were a wreck in this madness.

He took her back to the dorms and while glancing back, she felt some sort of accomplishment but what could it be? What was holding her hands, now?

And it from there that she understood. That she knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Have You Ever by Brandy, Ending theme from FFX OST


	10. Of Want and Desire

Ayumi was used to the silence and while it perpetuated highly in Kokichi’s room-theirs, even if that sort of designation was completely foreign to her. Sharing a room with a boy, a teenage boy at that was at the hormonal level of wanting sex constantly and goddamn it, did it feel satisfying and glorious, but through touch alone, she could sense and even feel the tension of his inner workings even if he didn’t speak much to her; but he did talk but it was brief and awkward but of course, having a girlfriend was weird in a Killing Game environment to begin with but wanting to open up was difficult. Difficult for someone that hid behind lies and deceit but that was just him. Just Kokichi Oma and she accepted that raw part of himself. That unbinding passion of sticking to hiding behind a wall that she hoped to crack one day but this wasn’t the time for such things.

“Are you happy this way?”

Completely serious and in a non-mocking tone that had her hairs stand up.

“You mean with you? Of course, but I want you happy more than me. That’s the point of love, you know?”

“I meeean that this love business is sort of weird.”

“It can be. It really can, but you don’t have to say much to me.”

“I want to.”

“I know, it is hard since I am a girl and your girlfriend, too, but don’t fret, I am not forcing anything on you.”

He crawled over the bed and brought his face close to hers with shining eyes.

“You are mine, you know that?”

“I know, and I am happily content with that as I’ve told you a million times.”

“Nee hee-hee. You’re a weeeeird girl.” He remarked smirking so brightly and she then lit up herself, this was comical and the sensation that she deeply admired and took; The stars were in his eyes, yet again and she could confront it all the same.

“You’re weirder than me. Ultimate Supreme Leader. Psst.”

“You mock me?”

“Of course, dear supreme leader. I can do that, too. I am called a tease for a reason.” She giggled as he used his arms to anchor him down and cower over her, but she knew the drill and pushed on his chest lightly.

“You a tease? I don’t beeelive it for one second. Ultimate Bibliophile.” He replied in a sing song voice, which made the smile harder and wider on her lips.

“Why are you smiling?”

“You’re too cute and I couldn’t be luckier.” She looked up at the ceiling and still, it was beginning to be familiar to her and while that could be a worsening symptom of being in this Academy, she knew it felt homely, even passive in her mind. “And as weird as it sounds, I am glad to have fallen for you as it just means no one can escape everything and proves what a softie you are.”

“Nee hee-hee, you got me there.”

“I certainly did, and I am glad.”

Taking her pointer finger, she traced his jaw and then circled back inside the edges of his lips, and he then, took that finger and sucked on it.

Gently.

“Kokichi…” She had pushed him back and soon with their hands on the bed, she reached further out to him, more fingers enveloping him sweet cheeks. “I want you to be able to tell me anything, but I know it takes time. I know it’s difficult to say everything, but I want to know more about you. I wish to know more about what makes you breathe and function. I want to always know.” She eagerly exclaimed expecting the worst impression.

“Then, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Please, know that you can trust me with anything. I am here for you.”

She let the moment slide as he made his way up and to the white board that now had her picture on it and a word scribbled underneath.

“Did you get it?” He questioned.

“Get what?”

“The Motive Video.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, but I bet whatever it means, I missed it since I wasn’t in my room.”

“That’s not RIGHT!”

“AHHH!” She cried as one of the Monokubs appeared holding another tablet and ushered it into her arms.

“Here’s your Motive Video!”

Another aspect of the Killing Game was staring to recycle itself again.

“M-Motive Video? What the hell? Is someone else going to be the blackened?”

“Who can say!”

** “So Long, BEAR WELL!” **

Motive Video? Was something on hers?

“I’ve seen mine already.”

She then had the strange urge to ask him to see it but words were meaningless here and she kept it under wraps.

“I don’t want this.”

Tears were breaking, and she threw the tablet furiously from her and hoped that it cracked and was entirely unusable. Completely worthless.

“I want you to see mine. It will help you understand.”

“No, Kokichi.”

“Yumi,”

“It’s just more of a reason to hurt us all to divide us further. I’m already exasperated by this whole ordeal that I don’t want it continuing. I don’t want to see anyone die anymore.”

“It can’t be helped since we are in this Killing Game.”

Soon, the insanity and lies began creeping up in him and she violently shook her stinging face.

Why was he doing this now? Why was he becoming worse?

“I hate this game. I hate murder.”

“What?”

Briefly mentioned before but she felt that he would elaborate.

“I am lying to myself, entirely. I don’t want to play this anymore, I don’t want this too.” Now, his own frustration was streaming down his own cheeks, and she could only watch the wetness take over.

“No more murder. No more suspicion.”

“Someone is going to do this. Someone will use this Motive Video to murder and justify it. I know the exhaustion you feel but we all do have that in common and I want you to finally realize that.”

“Nee hee-hee, you certainly-”

“Stop lying. Stop pretending that it doesn’t hurt you. Stop pretending that it doesn’t matter when it certainly does. Just be honest-I don’t care if you’re a liar because I know when it’s happening, and I want you to stop. Be honest for and to me.”

His face remained obscured and while the harshness of the words were anything to go by, she didn’t think she meant harm but what would the reaction be?

“You’re right…I have been lying to myself the whole time. I remembered when I saw the Motive Video, the person that I was. I will do this right and if I have to save us and mostly you, that we have to keep participating or we’ll die regardless, and I don’t want that. I don’t want that for you.”

She shot up.

“I don’t care, Kokichi. My mind is already made up and even if I die, at least my death will have a meaning to myself and hopefully to everyone, too.”

“NO!”

She tumbled back by the sheer force of the voice that he was projecting.

“You deserve better and to be protected by me and Shuichi.” His face twitched at the name of the Ultimate Detective, but them both swore that this would end and to protect her. What could the protection be? Who knew what trap waited for them entirely and how could they prevent it?

“I don’t need your protection or Shuichi’s. Kokichi, I am prepared to risk it all in this game, so we can go home and resisting the Mastermind seems impossible unless there is a plan for it.”

“You want to become the blackened?”

“No. I don’t plan on killing or to be killed. Kokichi, please put your trust in me. Please trust me with your full being as I will not betray you. Please trust me. I need you to do this. Please let me be the one you at least trust.” She begged with a sense of arrogance, but it had to be this way and Kaede might have the right idea of the Mastermind after all because Monokuma was a robot and so then there was someone setting and carrying it out, plus taking part in this perverted game. This prank.

“I know it’s difficult to do so, but Kokichi, I am in your life and want you to confide in me more. Please Kokichi.”

He flinched for a moment and then a sense of courage overtook him.

“I can’t.”

She sighed.

“Kokichi.” She muttered shifting herself to the door, defeated and exhausted; Twisting her gaze back to the dejected Kokichi, her boyfriend. One day, he would. One day, it would help to be so patient and understanding. “I love you.”

His eyes picked up, in disbelief.

Maybe he deserved it or not, but no wall would settle down forever between them and she’d have to make the time to dismantle and persevere through it, because he was certainly worth it. He was worth all the precious time in this world and Academy.

“Don’t go. Stay.” He whined, almost succumbing to his primal desires and secret openings in his heart, and so she stayed, and then he held her that night without any more words. Without any more double meanings because it was meaningless and they had to be in this together. 


	11. Singing to the Sky

Leaving a sleeping Kokichi, she crept to the white board and studied it briefly as the faces blurred and the words leapt out, but what was she searching for? Her picture was on the side and underneath Shuichi’s which had the scribbling of ‘Trustworthy?’ but hers was special as he had underlined one word:

** Love **

What should she do now that she captured a small bird in a cage? A small heart that needed tending forever on? But did they have forever together? Who had that kind of future here, anything as bleak as death, no matter how familiar it could be, she still hadn’t recognized the futility of it. She didn’t realize that she had been foolish all too much and well, but wasn’t the wisdom of youth gone now?

His Motive Video.

She was still skeptical if not curious at what the contents could be and what he would need to kill to preserve, and so with shaking ambitions, the Motive Video played.

It was a group photo of these people were wearing the same clothes as Kokichi but masks were present, but he was at the center, smiling so proudly, but it wasn’t warm; But was this…his secret evil organization? So, he was fibbing again? Even still, she was relieved and heard for the final time that his group: **D.I.C.E** had the one rule-no murder, only nonviolent pranks and crimes.

**No murder?**

**What?**

**What?**

Kokichi was still slumbering and with a slender stroke, she tugged at the tips of his hair and then roamed to his cheek bone. It wasn’t straight, but it was something and she sat lightly next to him, wanting to know more and more as it reinforced the idea of him opposing murder but why mention it in the Motive Video and in private to her? Why was the glass house shielding him? Wouldn’t her stone shatter it? Did he not want that? So much that she didn’t understand.

“Oh, Kokichi. Why do you put up that mask? That persona of something not hurting? I wish you’d trust me, but I guess, how could you? Not here even if you’re loving someone like me.”

She laughed but it was hollow like she was guessing to be. She didn’t think that it was possible to love someone as bookish as her and with the knowledge of almost everything at her fingertips as her reading speed was incredible along with her memory rentention but it meant nothing here as her talent was ultimately pointless, because no talent would save them except Shuichi’s because being a detective meant solving all the cases possible and mysteries that this Academy and Killing Game accomplished and buried in its walls.

Endless and hushed secrets all not wanting to be discovered but could they really all rely on Shuichi? He didn’t need that burden and even if he had friends, could they really be trusted? What should she do?

Just because he was an Ultimate didn’t mean he wasn’t human and they just forgot. They all didn’t understand.

“One day, perhaps.”

She quietly dressed herself and in a moment of clarity, wrapped one of Kokichi’s shawl over her neck and stepped out as the morning’s announcement played.

What should she do now? What should she do?

Everyone was awaking and already dread filled the empty holes in her mind and her heart suffered and knowing that she would face Shuichi again…and everyone too and their ‘concern’ just sicken her.

What should she do?

“Kiibo!” She cried trying to appear put together.

“Ah! Ayumi! Good morning! I see that you’re up before everyone…is there a reason why?”

“Not really. I just couldn’t sleep any longer and besides,” She paused. “I was hoping to avoid everyone.”

“I understand.”

“Do you really?” She snapped back then retraced her words. “I’m sorry Kiibo. I’m just a little snappy today for some reason.”

“It’s pretty normal in fact. How’s Kokichi?”

“Still the same, I’m afraid.”

“There’s some worry in you, isn’t there?”

She took a last sigh.

“I thought that he would open up to me more but it’s proving to be difficult and my talents are worthless when dealing with this whole situation. He’s not an easy person to comphrend honestly and I know everyone detests him and yet, he doesn’t care. I don’t understand that mentality, but this is seriously wrecking my brain thinking that there isn’t enough time to understand.”

“Borrowed time. I understand. Kokichi is really holding back, isn’t he?”

“And those Motive Videos, I hate this game. I wanna do more than sit back and just…”

“We all share the same sentiments.”

“I know he’s difficult and can lie a lot but he’s not a bad person at all and in fact, misunderstood.”

“You would know as you’re closer to him than anyone.”

“But it feels pointless to try sometimes because of the misgivings I have. It hurts, it pains me that I can’t be close to him at all. That I can’t get through to him and I always wonder what I should do.”

Her hand clutched the shawl and crumpling it under her fingernails as suddenly she violently shook her up in defiance.

“I won’t give up. I won’t. I just can’t. Listen to how cliched I am because of all the books I’ve read.”

“It’s not cliched if you truly feel that.”

“Do you think you’ll ever be human entirely?”

“I hope so. I dream so.”

“I believe in it, Kiibo, for you.”

It was always in her and in the heart that she always believed in. “Thank you Kiibo. I plan to let him hear my voice one day and I hope he hears it loud and clear.”

“That’s beautiful. I will no longer doubt your relationship with Kokichi especially when you’re a shining example of humanity.”

“You’re funny, Kiibo. You know that you’re not too bad when everyone picks on you. I feel kind of bad.”

“Don’t be.”

With a twirl and a lift, she hugged Kiibo warmly and leapt off, holding back any of the remaining tears and carrying whatever was left and holding the page, empty again. The love that was worth the pain and that was worth living for. It was a life that couldn’t exist without.

“Yumi…” A voice whispered behind her, but she was too focused forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music listened to : Sora Ni Utaeba by amazarashi 3rd Opening to Boku No Hero Academy  
> What Should I Do by Park Da Ye from the Kdrama You're Beautiful  
> Lovers by 7!! Seven Oops 9th Opening to Naruto Shippuden


	12. The Days When You Were Here Alongside Me

_“We’ll get out of here and be friends for life!”_

How silly and naïve Kaede had been because irony had an agenda and took her on that journey and thus, broken dreams and shattered glass all underfoot and ripping the sores of everyone’s feet. How unique and even whimsical this was but no jokes could be had and even if times were frank, the thought of those Motive Videos struck right at the terror in Ayumi’s body and recalling even Kokichi’s-what would be taken abroad? What action would be carried out, and would everyone stop wishing for death? Did mankind and humanity itself, demand that death be the final purge and nightmare?

It was nighttime before she saw the Ultimate Entomologist, Gonta Gokuhara and he was rushing towards her and Shuichi at full speed.

“Huh?”

“Shuichi!” She cried as he slumped back onto the ground and she grabbed him lightly with his bangs falling into place over his eyes and his ahoge neatly relaxing.

“You gotta be more careful, Gonta! You could seriously hurt someone.”

“Sorry. Gonta came to get you both because Kokichi asked to round up people.”

“Why?”

Shuichi looked serene and even relieved as if sleep was the only escape possible and he was taking advantage of it. Lucky. Just so lucky but he looked handsome this way and she found herself red as a cherry almost grateful as Gonta took him as it solved all of her problems.

What was Kokichi planning now? She didn’t necessarily hate bugs, but she was mostly indifferent to them as she figured that they had some kind of purpose that the animal ecosystem planned out. Nature was that way-mysterious and full of purpose, too, and maybe this Killing Game meant something?

No. It was pure carnage and misery.

She entrusted herself into Gonta’s care and entered into his Ultimate Lab, and was greeted by nearly everyone including Kokichi, but he was brandishing Motive Videos boasting about something or other.

“It’s part of Monokuma’s trap! We can’t watch them together.”

“Ah, c’mooon, this is a Motive Video showing and we can watch them together.” He declared full of himself but as Shuichi reawaken, the rest of the group was shaking their heads. “C’mooon on, I went to all the trouble of lock picking into your rooms and getting them all.”

“That’s not necessary.” Shuichi said in his strongest voice. “That’s what Monokuma wants. This is a trap, Kokichi and I don’t know why you want to go into it willingly.”

A finger was raised to Kokichi’s lips as a dangerous smirk crawled all over his face.

“I already had someone view my own Video.”

Ayumi froze.

He was awake. That sneaky little shit, but he was hers and she had to rest assured that he didn’t mean harm but was this a trap?

“Was it to your liking, Yumi?”

“Kokichi-I guess my curiosity got the be-”

“Like you can’t resist me.” His smirk got wider and her body shivered but in pleasure and the love flooded back to her and she couldn’t help it. The weight of a demanding love and overwhelming life.

The night before. The words unspoken and the embrace that grappled them both to sanity and hope.

“H-Hey!” Shuichi exclaimed interrupting the breeze of memories between her and Kokichi, but it annoyed and aggravated Shuichi-the heartbreak ringing in his bones. She had to guess by the way his ahoge stiffened.

“Still jeaaalous, Shuichi?” Kokichi mocked openly.

“I-I didn’t mean that…”

“What’s going on between you two?” Tsumugi asked plainly making herself audible.

“I’ve noticed the rising tensions between Shuichi and Kokichi.” Kiibo remarked helpfully.

“Of course! He’s trying to win love like a true hero! And Kokichi is the villain.” Kaito remarked gleefully.

“H-Hey!” Shuichi sounded raspy but with a hollow voice, Kokichi wasn’t amused and neither was Ayumi but her eyes were darting back at the swarming bugs approaching.

“Loooooks like the villain won.”

“Shuichi won’t give up! He’s vowed!” Kaito shouted nearly getting into Kokichi’s face, but with hands outstretching, Ayumi held back Kaito, eyes swimming against the water forming at the edges.

“Kaito, no matter how much you want Shuichi to win…you can’t change someone’s heart so easily. You can’t change or choose who you love. It’s impossible and while you won’t give up, you should. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying besides Kokichi on this, no matter what he does-because that’s what love is, you find the faults and stay.”

Her bangs retreated into her hairline and she was vindicated, with a fierce determination-fierce stance that threatened any part of her happiness because they didn’t know what happened in private. They didn’t know the compassion and even longing plus the hope of an everlasting joy; And if she had to take hold, she wouldn’t let go even if the weight crushed her. The weight of the world was overwhelming but with a glance up, Kaito was surprised even stunned.

“I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t either. I feel lost, even perplexed feeling like I never felt before, but give up, Shuichi-no matter how much you try and no matter how much everyone tries to persuade me, I have a heart and I’ll follow it. I’ll guide myself towards that light if I have to and no one can hold me down and if you do, I’ll kick and punch you out of my way.”

“We should definitely respect her as I trust her.” Kiibo explained.

“Not with Kokichi!” Kaito shouted. “Stop being so blind-”

“Love **IS** blind, Kaito, don’t you realize that?”

“Ayumi,”

“He’s a little shit but he’s still someone I trust to handle what’s important in me, as I’ve already given him a lot and plan to continue. Body, heart, and soul.”

“So, they did have sex.”

Shuichi flinched.

“Wasn’t that obvious from the first time that I mentioned it?”

“H-How could you?” Kaito looked disgusted but only then, was love too livid for its own good. Only was the weight plunging her into the deepest depths of searching. Searching for some way.

“How could I not? That’s what happens…regardless, we should be worried about that!”

“Worried about wh- **AHHHH**!”

Himiko screamed as swarms of bugs covered her and then overrode a lot of the group as they tried fighting back it all, but that didn’t bother Ayumi in the slightest as she glanced hard and long at Kokichi. His hair defying the very gravity that held her to this spot.

She was undeniably trying to lie her way there and no one told him that love was the biggest lie of them and they were all duped from the start.

Outright and explicit images waved over her consciousness and she deliberately desired to act on them but with some unambiguously gestures-he laced his fingers through hers.

Kokichi Oma.

She had saw the Motive Video: D.I.C.E.

**The Ultimate Supreme Leader.**

The weight was coming down and yet, she stayed as he asked and constantly every night even if they couldn’t share more than paranoia and even the mixture of love and hope together. Paranoia that was melting away through and through each day.

Contextualizing what it meant to have, hold and treasure.

“I love you.” He said outright spinning her gracefully into his space and pleasure.

“I meant what I said, too. One day, you’ll be yourself fully around me and I just know it, so I gotta keep believing too and even if I sound like Kaito, I can definitely see something. Promise me that this will last. Promise me that this won’t end.”

She wanted them to leave this Academy together and stay as they were as everyone needed someone to love and kiss. The moment didn’t pass, and she could show him that her love was true and even all she wanted to have. Everyone deserved someone to love and reveal the outer workings of the world and of themselves till it drilled right into the core. The core of what could be deemed foolish love. Foolish hearts.

And in a moment of true clarity, she felt the truth spewing out.

If words were meaningless then actions were purposeful in their conveyance and so with a lean, she felt the brush of his now free fingers stroking her top lip before going in and bringing his own tongue against hers. Harder. Faster.

The passion searing.

Hands now traveling up through his hair and combing in the colorful combination of strands, now smelling the scent in the open and visible air.

Like children and past mistakes, he took her away from the Insect Meet and Greet, leaving the Motive Videos alone. Leaving the traps that Monokuma claimed ownership over.

It was difficult to make it to his room without tripping over the now exploratory and unregulated libido squirming in them and when the door was shut by their backs, he threw her down and like always, the softness hit her more when he climbed on top and smiling, which was the sight she wanted to always wake up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listened to Weight of the World from Nier Automata OST


	13. Opening Despair

 

 

 

 

 

“Shuichi!”

“Hey! You can’t be doing that!” Kaito screamed rushing over to Shuichi, whom, was on his knees, resting a redden face where the punch landed and Kokichi was the sole perpetrator, but only because Ayumi didn’t move quicker but she noticed how in that instance how agile her boyfriend was; Yet, Shuichi was out of line and daring to touch her lips like he owned her. Only did she let Kokichi have that honor and willingly, too.

“Next time, I won’t be so generous.” Kokichi vehemently spat now with fury twitching at the edges of his mouth, almost spiraling close to the darkness that people often ever saw once; But he saw it more times than she realized and how easily he could tap into that feature. The darkness that resided in kind hearts like Shuichi’s. Why was he acting foolish and kissing anyone without their consent?

“I told you, Shuichi, that she’s mine and I don’t care at all for your lack of respect on the matter.”

It was an idiotic action that led to Kaito charging in anger but Kokichi easily turned a bit and stepped out from the moment and Kaito fell unaccousted to the same floor.

“D-Damn you, Kokichi.” He muttered rising slowly, almost pained. Almost hiding something from them all. “Shuichi didn’t deserve that-”

“He did, and I will provide more to him if he so desires or maybe the Killing Game can start again.”

“Kokichi, that’s enough. Shuichi is still my friend, even if misguided in his heart but I appreciate you saving me from him. I just froze there, and I hate that I didn’t do more but what can I say? I’m at blame. I’m at blame for letting this escalate more and more. Maybe, it’s best if we…”

“Don’t!” Kiibo called out, believing and trusting in her.

“Kokichi, never mind what I was saying but leave Shuichi alone. I don’t want my friends being hurt because of me nor anyone else. Shuichi, stick to loving Kaede in your memory.”

“K-Kaede.”

“If she didn’t fucking do what she did, I wouldn’t have these problems. She was so selfish to act impulsively, and hurt us all.” Impulsive anger exploding and whatever she managed to cry unabashedly was cruel and swords that stabbed Shuichi repeatedly. He deserved the thousand of swords aimed at him but, was that too much? Was that sadistic part of herself slipping off? He had to hurt like her. He had to know the boundaries that were going to be set up and that wall he could never traverse.

“H-Hey, that’s going too far.” He squeaked visibly hurt.

“It’s true. You loved her and yet, you’re pulling me apart and my relationship. I know, it’s hard to hold on to what you love and believe in but know that I will always have tender feelings for you as my friend. Nothing much, Shuichi Saihara and I am sorry that Kokichi did this but maybe you had to have this. I hate this and really do.”

Finding out the love you had stored was worthless in the eyes of the loved; And the unrequited Shuichi was more than broken but shattered, yet, finding more about himself and her could indeed lead to peace and understanding plus less pummeling. Less conflict and no murder.

“AHHH!”

“See! Love triangles are perfect fodder for jealousy then murder!” Monokuma explained excitedly popping up as he usually did, unannounced.

“No one is getting murdered because of this fucking stupid love drama.”

“Can you really be sureee?”

“Let’s be calm about this.” Tsumugi rationalized again so plainly but it wasn’t her fault that she was often overlooked despite being the Ultimate Cosplayer. She basically had no personality and often follow the crowd but Ayumi wasn’t blaming Tsumugi. On the contrary, Ayumi wished more for her personality to take shape and be the voice that they all internalized.

“I don’t care either way and beeeesides, wouldn’t that make the Killing Game better and more interesting?” Kokichi said gleefully.

“Kokichi…don’t lie.”

“Oh, sweet Yumi, that’s just how I am.”

“You’re crying.” Shuichi remarked towards Ayumi and Kokichi’s face again was hidden and without saying a kind word, he left hurriedly.

“Hey-Ayumi!”

She turned her head and too, ran off but enough to grab Kokichi’s sleeve, and like that, she dropped her arms around his neck, relaxing and serenely sending a message to him, but would he receive it?

“Yumi, be honest with me and don’t lie like I do; Are you truly happy with me?”

“What?”

“I know that the others have been pestering you about me and now, Shuichi.”

“I wouldn’t be here, would I, now?” She smiled pulling him to her breasts. “I can’t lie to a liar like yourself nor is it benefitting me; And this makes me want to hold my heart against yours just all that stronger. I am sooo totally cliched right now but that’s how it feels and is.”

“I appreciate your honesty, then.”

“Now, I get that you want to put up that mask, but, always try your best to be honest with me.”

“There’s nooooooooooooo way I could lie to my girlfriend and besides, we have things to do-lost time to make up.”

She squeezed him more.

“And sounding even my cliched, I am happy that this Killing Game-no, seriously, that this game began, and we met. I am happy and delighted, even, to fall in love with the Ultimate Supreme Leader and that he returns the same affections. The same feeling. Again, soooo cliched but it should be said for you, and I hope that we’re the last two people alive and can go home together.  I want this to last forever even in this unforsaken place.  I want to be by you the best way I can.”

“You can be, Yumi.”

She smirked.

“Then let me love you in the only way I know how, and open up so beautifully and be vulnerable to me as I’m laying my own soul down to you.”

Was that out of line to expect that from her boyfriend? It was happy tears overflowing the cliched feelings as everyone deserved someone to spend an eternity with even if it was a Killing Game.

“But I will end this Killing Game.”

“Then, I’ll do my best to help you.”

“Please don’t as I want you safe and innocent through it all.”

“Kokichi…” She scoffed. “You’re something supreme leader.”

“Don’t be so formal, yoooou know? I’m game for whatever nickname you give me.”

“I love your given name, but you can keep calling ‘Yumi’ by all means. I love you, silly Kokichi.”

“Yumi, I love you too.” He raised his arms and grappled onto hers’ and released himself but she gracefully let go until he leaned down and plunged his tongue in her mouth catching her off guard.

Her tongue came over his’ and soon, he was pushing her against the Dining Room’s door, blocking the way and fumbling with her coat and then his pants.

“K-Kokichi, we can’t.” She let out a moan loudly enough to hear rumbling inside as an after effect and was swept away so fast that her vision no longer functioned, and she found herself not at the door but their room and him, already shirt less and her, naked from top to bottom, but instead of touching and going, he instead clasped her like she was leaving or dying, which both were terrible, but the attention he gave was remarkable that she immediately reciprocated.

For a little shit turned to a boyfriend, she remarked softly to herself that he wasn’t doing a bad job giving into his happiness that sprung from his quiet and compassionated words.

Kokichi Oma.

Compassionated?

Kind?

Loving?

An enigma and one, she’d forever decipher but the joy was clear in her kiss afterwards, and he took it kindly and not sparing his own overflowing soul, she grabbed it and tugged at him by this checkered shawl, unraveling it.

“You cry too much.”

“Yeah. I know. I don’t want to forget you.”

“You won’t.”

“If you die-”

He soothed the tears rolling onto his palms and kissed the source-her hazel eyes, with her pink hair twirling around his fingers, now.

It was curly and tangled enough to caress and he did that for what felt like minutes becoming moments and then…reality hit harder than the wall she always met with him.

> **A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Touch and Go from Blue Seed OST, Happy Tears from Video Girl AI OVA and various Danganronpa 1, 2 and V3
> 
> Font used for Ayumi Mizota's handwriting: Unicorn Sparkles


	14. Love's Loss

_“Himiko…magic? Oh, yeah..” Ayumi was dumbfounded why this was going to happen now but they still needed some sort of entertainment, still, it felt too light hearted in this environment._

_“A magic show!” Himiko, the Ultimate Magician-er, Mage exclaimed at Angie Yonaga’s insistence and with that, Ayumi and some of the Ultimates seemed quite excited but with an air of suspicion rising because this was a Killing Game and no magic show was quite innocent enough and Monokuma could twist it and_

_But the skepticism was full and even if Ayumi didn’t care for Himiko (seeing the Ultimate Mage as a childish pest) and even the religious fanatical Angie, the Ultimate Artist, there was some merit in trying to be cheerful when life turned the other way. When the world was the bleakest._

“He’s a pile of bones.” Ayumi muttered noticing that this was game and now, investigation was under foot and the burden was on Shuichi, that Ultimate Detective or that Detective Royalty and Kaito and the nonsense of heroes and sidekicks.

Ryoma Hoshi, the Ultimate Tennis Pro was devoured by piranhas, and while, she didn’t exactly talk to him much, the attitude-the vibe given by him was quite sorrowful. Losing the will to live because of the past had to sting more than she knew-because she too, lost something important and watching Kokichi and even Shuichi, the ache was real, and she found the gym floor so familiar and even comfortable. Why

“Ayumi!”

Unraveling further, Kokichi and Shuichi’s hands were there as her web and hoisting her up though she clung to anyone but realized the implications of her carelessness.

“A-Ayumi..” Shuichi blushed and for a moment, her fingers went up as she tried to trace where his lips could take her; but he was always the safe choice to love and cherish, but there was something so sincere in hi, but it wouldn’t suit her anymore-not after her own past. She had given up the safest option and always decided to take the riskier road to the destination she was always seeking and Kokichi was that and also, she did fall in love with his antics and even quirkiness.

“S-Shuichi. Thank you for helping me.”

“W-Well, it wasn’t any problem.”

“I’m glad. You can let go now.”

Releasing her quietly, she ended up wobbling straight into Kokichi but he guided her seamlessly with his left arm to a far away position. Jealously, but luckily, no was killed so far with it, but the looks were less than kind, worth the stabs that Kokichi was giving Shuichi and if it had been real, then Shuichi wouldn’t have a chance, but smothering the unpleasant and sadistic thought, she was woken up by the crash of Kiibo against the glass tank and the contents falling beneath their feet.

And soon, either Monokuma or the Kubs would come and present the awful truth, which was Shuichi’s job to obtain but would it rather be on them, too? He wasn’t alone and besides, if they all voted for the wrong culprit then, they would get executed or in Monokuma’s terms “punished” but however you looked at it, someone had to die. Someone always must, and those damn Motive Videos were the cause.

And that’s why she refused to see hers or do anything about it except she wondered who else saw their own Motive?

“Ah right! Let’s go sidekick!” Kaito exclaimed as Shuichi gave a light smile but even then, his own easiness was clear and as he looked back at her, a longing reached her space and she reacted as such.

They could do anything together and for a split moment, her reach wasn’t enough and noticed.

“What’s going on here? Why is she doing that?” Tsumugi noticed the tension and quickly Ayumi’s arm went to her side and clutching it sheepishly, she averted her eyes, embarrassed that she got carried away. Why was she still wanting to help and even worse kiss him and then smashing his face in? He was too safe of a choice to love and even desire, and besides, shy guys like him never worked out for her. Never ever.

But was Shuichi Saihara different?

“Let’s leave this to Shuichi. He knows what he’s doing.” Kokichi said bringing her focus on him again, and probably she could see that hint of annoyance in him, but he was masking it too perfectly.

“Don’t you think we should help him? Our lives are on the line-”

“You can if you want because I won’t stop you.”

Kokichi. It was futile to try and calm him but with a slick movement of her legs, she ended up tagging behind Shuichi and Kaito as they finished their examination in the gym thoroughly.

She didn’t really speak, and they didn’t seem to notice her presence, but Shuichi was lying about it, and not wishing to get tangled up in his own lies, he ignored her, as he was the easiest to read and fool.

“So, these clues…whatcha find, sidekick?”

Why was Kaito always so loud and optimistic? But they had ended up in the pool area and where and why didn’t make sense but to Shuichi and even Kaito, there was a connection.

“You can see Ryoma’s lab from the gym, so they are connected and knowing that somehow these materials here-a rubber tire and some black material that was left are the only clues that this area can provide but how did…?”

“Good job, sidekick! Exactly what I was thinking!”

“Besides that,” He paused. “I think we’ll understand it more if we go to Ryoma’s lab, after all.”

She scoffed at how lazy and presumptuous Kaito acted but a voice slowly climbed into her mind.

“You know, you spend too much time with Kokichi-and I understand why, but don’t think of Kaito as a bad person.” Shuichi hoped to make her understand but how could she resist such a sweet voice? A sweet Detective Prince.

“I don’t but it is just that-”

“I know that I cannot compete with your bookish charms, but I am still Kaito Momota Luminary of the Stars!”

“I know but yeah,” She nearly wanted to roll her eyes, but the sensation was held back.

“Don’t be jealous that I spend my time with Shuichi and you don’t!”

“Oh, shut up, Kaito.”

“It’s written on your face. You’re in love with Shuichi!”

“Oh, how about you really shut up, Kaito?”

“I see no denial about that because I know these things! How about you ditch that Kokichi character and stay with Shuichi?”

“Stop trying. Just. Stop.”

“K-Kaito, this isn’t the place for this.”

“I agree. Let’s continue.” She was flustered by Kaito’s constant pestering but she could ignore it as they had her in the beginning.

“So why are we here?”

“Because of the way Ryoma was transferred to the tank. It seemed impossible to be carried there but rather transported there and, the clues we found.” Shuichi said putting a hand to his face, covering his mouth, as if processing. He didn’t want this either and yet, he was forced again. How much could these class trials go on for? Till two people really lived?

“So, you’re proposing that perhaps that he was somewhere else before the murder?”

“It’s not much to go by but it seems plausible.”

The class trial was going to be the definitive way to get the answers needed but, what did someone see in their Motive Video to commit straight up murder?

“Did you view yours?”

“No, but I had someone else’s.”

“Someone else’s? Weren’t we supposed to get our own?”

“That I don’t know but they were switched again by Kokichi.”

Yes, he had wanted a viewing party and even she refused it on the grounds of wanting to halt the murders, but someone had other ideas but why Ryoma? Why anyone for that matter? Goddamn Monokuma and his perverted illogical meanings.

“Don’t fret about Kaito. He means well.” Shuichi said out of earshot of Kaito, “He really does care, you know? He cares a whole lot about his friends and me.”

“I’m not surprised by that but me, his friend? Seriously? I mean, I’m totally fuc-Nevermind that, but, would it be wise to stay an enemy? It’s not like these murders will stop.”

“It’s not true but we can only hope. You have people that care about you besides me.”

He blushed and took his hand off and grabbed hers’, and she didn’t recoil this time, allowing it the contact. Why? Why anything?

“S-Shuichi.” She stammered almost wanting to run. “Why do you love me? Why do you keep trying? It can’t be about Kaede and your regrets about her death?”

“It’s never been about how I felt about Kaede, either, but how you were towards me. Kind.”

“Anyone can be kind, Shuichi.”

“Maybe. Maybe, but it takes extra kindness here.”

“Oh, Shuichi, you’re too silly.”

“You haven’t asked me to let go.” He said suddenly.

Her heart was rapid and tearing through even if Shuichi was holding it together the best he could after all.

“I-I don’t want you to.” She whispered almost inaudible.

“Do you love us both?” He asked.

“Huh!?”

Why in the hell was he being so forward with her? But however uncomfortable she was, the movement continued till they found themselves in Ryoma’s Ultimate Lab and it was exactly what she expected from a Tennis Pro. A tennis court and all the accessories in it.

“Hell, even I can tell!” Kaito exclaimed making himself reappear into her collective thoughts.

“Does anyone else know?”

“No.”

“Are you positive, Shuichi?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I haven’t heard anyone comment on it.”

“That’s good then.” She remarked now entrusted into the ongoing investigation and by him, and yet, could it be possible that she loved them both?

**Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective**

**Kokichi Oma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader**

Yes. It was. She had written it in her diary that day and had forgotten about it till now, but could she really stay so conflicted by what she planned to do? Regardless, she was staying with Kokichi and would remain ‘his’.

Shuichi wanted to ask more but he was insistent in gathering the clues and then, when it was right, then it could be presented perfectly.

“Do you really like being claimed by Kokichi?”

“I don’t mind, honestly. It’s really cute in an endearing way.”

Remembering Kokichi had her heart spinning faster till, she untangled from Shuichi and while, his own heart was breaking, she had to reject it. What was she thinking? What was she doing in that sort of loss?

He’d always be the safe choice to love, always and nothing would change her stance on that.

Now, however selfish she could be, she secretly hoped that Kokichi and Shuichi were the final survivors but where did that leave her? Dead, of course, but in the end, they’d be both happier with or without her as she complicated things too much.

Would that be enough to placate her?

“Shuichi, watch yourself, please. I don’t want Kokichi hurting you again.”

“You’re too kind but as I see it, it’s too late for you to worry.”

“Shuichi. Why are you so fucking stubborn? Don’t you know that this is a Killing Game and I would rather you not die, in fact, please choose life and just survive the best you can.”

“Ayumi, you’re still too kind.” He kept repeating and before the words had enough time, she heard the despicable bear’s voice echoing through the Academy.

Time to face the class trials, all together now.

Some one would face their death day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Lost in Love by Neon Bunny from "My Secret Hotel", Danganronpa V3 soundtrack


	15. Being Brave Means Death

It was grueling but they all assembled and when the elevator went down, there was a lump of foreboding and even gruesome memories awaiting them as an unnatural death was approaching someone. Someone in the shadows and in the depths of despair that was screaming at them. The only despair that accompanied death.

Their death, so violent and bloody.

Ayumi couldn’t extend a hand out but with some luck, Kokichi had hers’, lacing his fingers with the same nervousness she had. What was he thinking about this? What were the thoughts of the other Ultimates? Wasn’t it simply loathing and even sorrow? Or maybe it was much more sinister, and someone loved the blood letting and the stranger kinds of death?

She couldn’t fathom the ferociousness of those in the Ultimate group clamoring for this sadistic game and even if she though she thought of being too far gone, she wasn’t ready to start her own Killing Game for any amount of pleasure.

They all had to be decided and face what could have been or what would happen.

“Kokichi. Whatever happens here…”

The shadows were passing over her face as he stood straight up, determined.

Another harder lace of fingers but this time, she didn’t mind the strangulation of blood to those tips, only to feel him. Only to be around him and find some solace in this rigged game.

Then as the elevator halted and the iron cage door opened, Ayumi didn’t let go and almost stayed behind but with some tugging, she rapidly caught herself and ran up to meet the trial room head on.

The Blackened vs the Spotless battle began and so, they were all prepared to find Ryoma Hoshi’s killer: The Ultimate Tennis Pro, and as usual, Shuichi Saihara led the group.

Shouts, arguments, the perjuries from the lips of those choosing to believe, and lastly the conclusions being told was enough to make her vomit again. She wasn’t strong enough to understate through it and while she and Kokichi’s stand were far a part, they both exchanged looks-ones that undermined their true feelings.

“And that’s why, Kirumi Tojo, The Ultimate Maid is the culprit! She killed Ryoma Hoshi!” Shuichi declared among the collective gasps around them and while it felt concrete, what had been on those Motive Videos that Kirumi saw?

“Impossible. You’re wrong. Please evaluate your words and argument, Shuichi.” Kirumi said sweating a bit but a composure was in her grasp.

“I-I’m not wrong on this!”

“Clearly, you are mistaken. I would never do such a thing.”

“Who’s telling the truth? Nyeh.” Himiko muttered now lost but believing in what Shuichi had to say.

“Clearly, your arguments are flawed.”

“You exchanged Motive Videos with Ryoma after Kokichi switched them at the Insect Meet and Greet. You’re guilty of killing the Ultimate Tennis Pro.”

“Again, preposterous.”

“Regardless, the evidence isn’t in your favor, Kirumi. I suspected you since the black cloth was found and even said so in the beginning, because while it seems improbable that anyone one of us has black on us, but you did.” Ayumi found the courage rising in her.

“How could you deduce such a meaningless clue like that?”

“Again, I am the Ultimate Bibliophile, am I not? I’m very observant from my years of watching people in libraries and such from the corners of my books and my attention to detail in my readings of various subject including books by the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. It’s easy to deduce that you could have changed your glove but, seeing as your protest in not being the killer, it brings you more into a suspicion light.”

“Your talent is a nuisance.”

“I’ve been told that before, but since I am a little bit of everything, I definitely know when someone is lying-and besides, I’ve had real world experience with it too, so I definitely can say you’re lying!”

 **Kokichi Oma.** Definitely.

Book smarts didn’t account for everything in life if none of those skills were put into practice and dating a notorious liar certainly helped her. It aided her directly in any of these class trials.

“Besides, no matter your reason, murder is wrong and even if we must participate in this Killing Game, I refuse to let your indiscretions slide. I refuse to let anyone win that are the blackened because not only is my life on the line but everyone here. The spotless.”

“Ooooh, she’s taking charge. I like that she’s worthy to be with me, the Supreme Leader.” Kokichi declared in a very sing song voice but even if he was teasing, her face didn’t change as she kept the Poker face through out her interrogation of Kirumi.

Shuichi shook his head.

“More like a dishonor to be with you, you little shit.” Miu shot back.

“Ahhh, is the cum dumpster speaking without permission again? What a shame.”

“C-Cum dumpster. Awe! No one has ever said that about me!”

“Anyways, what do you have to say, Kirumi Tojo, Ultimate Maid? Will you give up or try to refute the evidence?” Ayumi said eyeing the surroundings and while she took Shuichi’s place, it was warranted to grill Kirumi.

“I don’t need to. It’s quite wrong in all aspects and yours and Shuichi’s deduction skills are severely lacking.”

“Don’t change the subject. I am in no mood to die here or to deal with your aversion. Now, Shuichi, close this case!”

“Y-Yeah.”

Though secretly she always wanted to be more useful than this, but settling to be Shuichi’s right hand as opposed to Kaito always insisting Shuichi to be his sidekick, it really was wrong. Completely wrong and she’d have to rewrite that.

She’d have to take those blank thoughts and throw them back to something more useful, but Kirumi was fighting and while it was admirable, it was quite futile but furious was her convictions; But the sentences were strangling, and the red string of fate was cutting off the ends and so what could she do?

Her fate was sealed and perhaps it was fading fast and while, the regret was there, almost giving up on it and knowing what she gave it up for, was it worth it?

Could wait forever but the vote wasn’t going to go that way and while, Ayumi held back the tangled heart bursting open at the top. Her composure had to be squarely on her conscience and thus the appearance of being on top had to be maintained.

The voting ended and while, with bated breath, she and the other Ultimates waited for the announcement and with a bit of glee, it came.

“You are right! Kirumi Tojo, the Ultimate Maid is the culprit!”

Sadly, it was without great doubt that Kirumi was in turmoil and was spilling over her calmness and losing what made her, her; Because no way that dying before made sense.

“I saw my Motive Video. I got Ryoma’s and thus we switched-” She paused. “And I then remembered and since Ryoma agreed to dying, I thought it had to be. I had to save this country.”

“Save this country?”

“Yes.”

Before hands switching went on, Monokuma went into action and they all saw Kirumi’s Motive Video despite Ayumi feeling it was beyond invasion of what was sacred, she couldn’t help feeling pity at Kirumi’s plight with the world on her shoulders.

“I am the Ultimate Maid and so, no task is impossible to undertake, and I can choose whether or not to accept a request; But I was given a big one on the whole future of Japan.”

“So, you were Prime Minister?” Kaito said surprised.

“Yes. The project was meant to save us all.”

“Project?” Shuichi hung on at that word.

“I remembered it and thus, wanted to save Japan.”

“Kirumi.”

What was the significance of those government officials including the higher office: Prime Minister asking such a request from her? Why was murdering Ryoma meant to happen?

“He had nothing to live for.”

“That’s impossible!” Ayumi squeaked.

“I saw his video and thus, he asked me to kill him for the sake of Japan, and I would gladly do it again.” Though of a lot of holes were yet to be filled, they still had to question and probe for those answers but there wasn’t any more time. Time that were mistakes.

“Kirumi-Monokuma!”

**“LET’S GIVE IT EVERYTHING WE GOT…IT’S PUNISHMENT TIME!!”**

“Monokuma-wait!” Ayumi cried as the execution played out and they all became helpless again; terrified by retribution and like at Kaede’s, Ayumi tumbled to the ground with nothing supporting her this time.

 

> **Murderer:** **Kirumi Tojo**
> 
> **Murdered: Ryoma Hoshi**


	16. Message

Dreams were the last thing that Ayumi needed in this world and from there, she wouldn’t budge but the room’s lights were strong enough to make her eyes weep and so gently closing, she was swallowed up in her subconscious.

Swimming or drowning?

Hands were pressed and then collapsed on her chest, but she couldn’t respond or even look upon on the shame she created. She knew that she violently fainted to hit her head hard as her sense along with the blood streamed out.

Was it worth it to give up the progress that they made? And inside she was crying and what did it matter when the regret was tangled in the track of time yet, she wouldn’t learn, never ever, even if the walls of her heart tore. Was it worth the words that were lost on them? Waiting on forever was foolish and even tempting but she was lost, in the red strings of fate and why did they give it up?

Who could learn from this?

What lessons could be pulled from this?

None.

Everyone was untrustworthy and willing to hide behind the words of “trust” and “friends” and Kokichi was right.

They were all lies and stumbling up from the bed, and regardless how she got there, she made the trek to the Dining Hall, with disheveled pink hair and wrinkled clothing. The trek was dizzying and nauseating but with intrepid determination, she made it as stares collectively fixated on her, then the world caused her to slowly fall.

Always falling and failing, too.

Exasperation was the key to her fatigue and yet, like wings, she was soaring until the crash came and arms guided her back up.

“I..”

“You shouldn’t be up at all!” Shuichi exclaimed angrily.

“I-I couldn’t stand being useless anymore.”

“You’re not useless.”

“I AM! Who the hell doesn’t have the guts to face the death of their fellow Ultimate?”

“STOP IT!” Kaito shouted for Shuichi as he was unable to voice anymore because it fell out of his own comfort zone. “You’re not useless for not stomaching _that._ We all can’t.”

“K-Kaito.” It came from her instead and while, she could be shocked…she decided not to be because sometimes she needed validation that her life here wasn’t insane entirely, and that she wasn’t alone in this. The distance was only her mind’s work but there was always a disconnect with her accepting people-strangers even, but they were all more than that, right?

“That’s a lie, Kaito and you know it.” She spat.

“Hey, c’mon. Give yourself more credit for being stronger than the rest of us. You showed us that we aren’t entirely monsters.”

With that logic, she was going nowhere with him, and though, she wanted-or desired to believe those words in him, she couldn’t bring herself to be stronger than him. Did it matter at any stage?

She weakly smiled.

“I guess so.”

“I believe in it.” He said triumphantly and while, she couldn’t quite grasp or keep it, she knew some parts of it was right. They had forgotten how to be vocal and instead locked the depths of their own hearts away.

Shuichi carried her away and while, she didn’t hesitate to cry through the doors; She knew that her tears meant nothing here, and that everyone forgot how to cry and to feel. Would she be the only one that have that burden?

And like that, Shuichi left nothing to the imagination, kissing her eyes and grabbing her close, and while, she didn’t take to it immediately-it was afterwards comfort and she acknowledged it.

Acknowledged the moments left in her, and the messages that weren’t quite read.

Messages that kept her going.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to: Message by Rei Yasuda from the Phoenix Wright Anime (ending)
> 
> Short chapter!


	17. Stars With Us

_There was a train._

_One of them bullet trains?  The second voice asked._

_Yes._

_What station?_

_I-I don’t remember, or I don’t know. It was just going. Going somewhere._

_Where were you at?_

_Tokyo-Shibuya station._

_Why?_

_Visiting my grandparents. They are botanists._

_Why for?_

_Because I owe them for taking care of me._

_What happened to your parents?_

_I don’t know. My grandparents won’t talk about it._

_Another mystery, eh?_

_I suppose so, but I can’t dwell on this._

 

Spinning and floating in dreams, Ayumi found herself with her hand to the head but with another moment to think about much, she jolted up. Oh, yeah, The Academy and the desperation of Kirumi and the state of the future of the present that they so sought which vanished with the end of the Motive Videos, but they still had theirs and she hadn’t even bothered to see hers-but Kokichi’s stuck in her mind sharply.

**_D.I.C.E_ **

But from the looks of it, she was back in the unchanging, unforgiving and sullied room of her’s but, with hands delicately placed on her chest, she wondered if something had happened more. Had more Ultimate Labs been discovered? The declining moral was stifling them all but Kokichi was mocking those in that unpunished pain yet, he was withering, wasn’t he? A man of contradictory nature all at odds with his behavior and even plans but his inner turmoil was shining in those eyes when she kissed him, but at this moment, she was empty. Her lips were cold, and his’ would be too, but there wasn’t much of a choice, so why did Shuichi abandon her here?

No, he wouldn’t dare go into Kokichi’s domain after the drama that made no sense since the beginning, so why was her heart leading her straight to disaster? Why was the humanity of love being shown now? Did adversity really breed beauty?

Was anything possible?

Was anything plausible in this improbable world? This Academy? This Killing Game? She pulled herself up and tried to shift forward, but before gathering all she could, a knock resonated in her ears.

Anyone could be there now…She waited before turning the knob, the breath she held in was stifling the rest of her body, but she had to hold to it.

“Thereeee you are.”

“K-Kokichi.” She replied stunned.

He smiled and for a moment, it felt real, felt truthful but as soon as the door, shut, he collapsed his arms around her, and she understood.

His lips passionately turning to her and pinning her back down onto her bed as he stayed in this dominance over her, and yet, tears should have fallen…but what she felt mostly was relief in the belief that he still loved her.

“I wouldn’t stop.”

“K-Kokichi.” A hand extended out to trace the lines of his cold cheek.

“Ayumi, don’t do that again. You hear?”

“K-Kokichi.”

“As your leader, you will listen and obey me.”

“You’re too cute, Kokichi.”

He snatched her whole hand and kissed it gingerly, almost flexing the fingers just to suck on the tips, and this overacted sensation riveted through her nerves till, she had to draw him into an open mouth kiss, sticking her own tongue against his’.

“Nee hee-hee. You’re pretty cute, too, Ayumi.” He said childishly, though this was anything but. “You’re all mine, too, and oh, I can have you any way I want.” His grin was devilish but there existed a reason, a façade around it, which she was chiseling away with a tiny hammer and finding out any light on the other side.

He just embraced her tenderly, the best way an Ultimate could-one that was a double take of lies and truth; But this was the truth here-the only one that mattered. And the stars were with them, and it was then, that she gave way to her urgings and let him devour her, the sentiments being the same, the thrusting and stroking, all-powerful and quite beautiful-the stars were with them, and she could imagine them outside her room, in her mind as they were better than anything except this, because he was here.

“Nee hee-hee.”


	18. More Than Love

 

_“Kaede, I know you care about him…and I know…” Ayumi paused and parsed her lips as if passing an unpleasant memory down into the depths, but it was true, it was just a crush on two people she just met. The mysterious Rantaro was simply that-an enigma and Kaede was just as different from her, that she couldn’t help but feel the tug of her aching heart, and so with Kaede playing with Shuichi’s and then Rantaro’s heart, Ayumi couldn’t stay quiet any longer as the deadline was fast approaching. No, not the Killing Game deadline but their own._

_“Just because you’re a nice girl, doesn’t give you the right-”_

_“What if I told that I mean it?”_

_“How could you!?”_

_“Because each is a different part of me, and I treasure them both and Ayumi-I care about you most of all.”_

_Kaede stood up and locked her hands against Ayumi’s and with baited breath, the nearness was palpable and even worse-as the lips touched her’s, it was inconspicuous to say the least and the price was paid. How could Kaede fall in love with her now? Or was that it?_

_How could she love three people?_

_“The secret is giving each three the tiny pieces of your heart and leaving them for more.”_

_“You’re terrible, Kaede, just terrible.”_

 

“Wakey-wakey!” Kokichi cried happily filling Ayumi’s vision and with a hand, she extended it out and he at once snatched it, but it was smooth, and he mildly smooched the palm, closing it lightly and for a split second, she swore that he had put something in that palm, but once it was returned-absolutely nothing.  He wasn’t that type of guy and wasn’t going to propose or let alone have a long-term stint as her boyfriend, but it would matter here and beyond, if she helped it.

“Oooh, you were expecting something, riiiight?”

She was despondent, but he kept pestering with his small whimpers till, she pushed a kiss onto him and he with a lot of strength, kept his appearance of dominance over her. “Oooh, you think you can outwit me, Ayumi? I’ll have you know that I’m thinking of doing more with you. Nee hee-hee.”

“M-More?”

“Don’t be too afraid. I’m not lying-or am I?”

“I know, Kokichi.” She replied almost dead pan, but it took a moment for her to feel the effects of laughter filling her cheeks and as another kiss came, she instead rested her head against his shoulder.

“No. It’s not a lie.”

He pinned her back down and ravaged her neck, sucking and lashing his kisses and leaving the tiny marks of his unbridled lust and greedy nature to own but despite all, he was quite cute, and even as she stared back into his sparkled purple eyes, she found his vision borrowing hers’

“Oh, Kokichi.” She moaned.

“You’re not wandering from me and I plan on keeping you near.”

“D-Don’t stop.” She said in between her moans and stammering.

“I want you, always. I cannot help but…wanting you. I will use you in anyway I want. My beloved.”

“Kokichi. You’re my beloved too.”

His tongue met hers and she swallowed his affection, garnering more and bursting as he pulled a few of her hair strands to his’ palm. The pinkness showing through.

Why did she dye it that color?

Rebellion and even best of all, her own independence plus she loved the concept of being unique.

“I want to have you always. Do, you think that we could be together forever?”

Her hand falling limply around her.

“Nee hee-hee, let’s find out, shall we? I plan on winning this game and taking you with me.”

“Kokichi.”

“Ayumiiii, why are so serious? Don’t cryyyy…”

“I can’t help it as I can imagine this lifetime with you; You’ll live at least and I’ll make sure.”

“You too.”

“My life-”

“Is mine to command and is precious to me. Nee hee-hee. My bride-”

Bride!?

“K-Kokichi-”

“That’s what you are to me and those are your dreams, am I riiiight? Maaybe the future is bright for us. Maaybe we’ll get out together and we’ll…”

More than love.

Devotion

Loyalty

And even kindness

She didn’t even know what to say, other than his name and even then, he was studying her intensely then relaxed.

More than love.


	19. Don't Think Twice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter from Kokichi's POV.

Kokichi Oma pushed a smile forth and while, it was dandy and all, there laid a despair and a sense of twisted lies that he kept spinning; So much so that he forgot sometimes what was real and then what could be the falsities in his life, but there was a constant.

His sentiments towards “special” Ultimates and each relationship was unique due to the personalities of those Ultimates.

He had latched onto Rantaro Amami as the older brother that Kokichi sought, and that security blanket was all he needed to acquire but once after Rantaro’s murder and the disgusting game began, the more that the mask was thinning out. But replacing a lost heart was difficult and while, he found one, but this Ultimate didn’t reciprocate and instead gave him scorn and displeasure. The hate was palpable and yet, Kokichi wouldn’t fail at Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective.

And before he knew it, he was interested in someone newer, but the desire was always turning for the detective and while, Kokichi smothered it, this new interest drew him closer; But closer to what? Gaining the ability to hold and read the hearts of those around him? Or tell greater and exaggerate his lies further?

He always felt like gender didn’t matter as much as a lot of people claimed and through his purple colored eyes could he gander the Ultimates around him and how ‘she’ came to focus and it wasn’t until the initial time before the class trial that she stood out to him. She became interesting along with her budding friendship with Kaede, Rantaro and Shuichi-all unknowns but they four seemed to be drawn to each other and Kokichi sensed it. They seemed to be squabbling over something though, Kaede was close enough to ‘her’ which he found out ‘her’ name afterwards.

_“Don’t be silly, you know? You must be kidding me…” She sighed grabbing ahold of Kaede’s arm and confidently squeezing it despite the horrors standing before them. All of them._

_“Ayumi,”_

Her name was pleasant enough but seeing Ayumi knelt distraught which brought Kokichi back and everyone too.

_“Rantaro…no…oh my god…” Ayumi’s eyes were the waterworks of the world, it seemed like but with another touch from Kaede, Ayumi flung herself into Kaede’s direction, with her face hidden._

_Then the voice and appearance of Monokuma rang in their ears and while he brabbled on, Kokichi’s eyes were on Ayumi, her long curly pink hair bouncing with each new direction she took._

_“I…I REALLY…”_

_“Remember what I told you, Ayumi? I--”_

_“I did and now, my heart is just…but I always knew the truth, didn’t I?” Ayumi said nearly out loud but with the expectation going on, it was a mess-a terrible mess of blood and death. “He cared for you more, didn’t he?”_

_“That-”_

_“Don’t worry, Kaede. I’m not mad in the slightest, but I wish I had the opportunity to tell him…that it was ‘okay’.”_

_Kokichi shot his head forward and when the trial began, Ayumi stood opposite from Shuichi, and Kaede, but their eyes kept locking every once and awhile, and..._

_“Kaede…if it makes sense, we have no other way to go then…”_

_“I don’t want that-Kaede!” Shuichi shouted clutching the tightest part of himself-his heart and while it was still okay, no doubt that it was messing up his head and now, with the web of relationships, betrayal was crumbling that nearness. “You can’t think like that, Ayumi!”_

_“Kaede is the culprit, isn’t she? We must accept the truth and live, Shuichi. Live and fight on and maybe we’ll either be saved or win this game, even if playing it was deadly enough.”_

_Kaede’s eyes hung low, but Kokichi knew it._

And now when Ayumi kissed him after the trial, Kokichi sprung out of the dining room and just kept going, and didn’t ease his rushing thoughts but coming back, he knew that his heart was spinning in that direction. She was a spider, wasn’t she? And someone he couldn’t get enough of and when the it came together, he should have realized that Shuichi would fight back for Ayumi and he did, viciously and while Ayumi once accepted those mild passes, she couldn’t anymore and Kokichi could sense the growth, the attraction she held for him.

He couldn’t escape and wondered if perhaps love was the worst liar that he knew and even if he was proficient in those words and exaggerations, he was dumbfounded by love. By love and with some chance, he caught on to her and now, he was in worst shape than he could imagine: slave to the yearning of sexual and emotional contact that it left him lost and worst, erect.

He didn’t know the specifics of the relationships between those four but all he knew now was that he didn’t think twice. Not at all.

He couldn’t say no, but she really think that?

Now, he was standing over her slumbering form, nestled in a dreamless escape that no doubt involved him, but he would die, wouldn’t he? He didn’t think nor believed he’d make it out and to explain that to her was not comprehendible as she gained tiny traits of hope and survivability from Shuichi, and thus complicated the situation but what time he had, and time granted would be beside her.

And even if he scoffed at it, he was a puppet, himself.

To the lies that love often spun.

To think twice.

Don’t think twice.


	20. Moon

Who knew what the moon was doing now and who would miss it? And as, Ayumi fell in the courtyard withering in terrible agony and clutching what was left of the blood pouring out. She had lost and now, with an ounce of know-how, she hollered into the brim darkness and while the stars were fantasizing that she should know what was happening and it was blank and bloody. Blank and dying inside.

She had been pregnant and while this was a no good, her blood stained around and under her and while, she fought to extend a handout, no one came. Wouldn’t Kaito, Maki or Shuichi be out? Someone?

Fighting off the fears of why she stumbled here and how long, had she blacked out. Wasn’t she here earlier? The time was relative to her surroundings.

She had lost the life that now, spilled forth and while it was borrowed time for her, the sentiments were that she lost something crucial and while a Killing Game wasn’t any place to have a child, she knew that her body wasn’t equipped to stay no, at least not to Kokichi. They were all kids, weren’t they?

“Hey-Kaito!”

Shuichi.

She weakly flickered her eyes open.

“S-Shuichi?”

“No, Maki.” The voice was cold and yet, knowing the truth behind her ‘talent’ was enough to put Ayumi back but whatever help was given would be accepted.

“H-”

“We are.”

“There she is-”

“Kaito?” Ayumi whispered hoarsely. “Tell Kokichi, that I am sorry.”

“Tell him, yourself.”

“Tactless as ever, Kaito Momota.” She weakly replied smiling lightly as many pairs of hands outstretched to her and while, she took one pair into her’s, it was a lucky shot that she would get Kaito’s but he wasn’t alone as Maki’s and now Shuichi’s joined Kaito’s. They were the undeniable trio.

“B-Blood,” Shuichi whispered concernedly that his hands were sullied.

“Y-Yeah. I miscarried. Haha, didn’t even figure that I would be…it was better off this way.”

“Not at your expense!” He shouted. “Never…”

“Don’t you dare…don’t you dare….”

“We’ve all been looking for you and for a moment, Kokichi was not himself-”

“You don’t even try to understand him, do you, Shuichi Saihara?”

“What’s to understand that little creep?” Kaito replied annoyed.

“More than you know, Kaito, regardless, I have to-”

“NO!”

“Shuichi?”

“Ayumi, I…”

“It’s long gone, you know? You don’t have to keep holding onto something that died so long ago?”

“I c-can’t.”

The images of Kaede kissing her and then being close to Rantaro all were cut from her mind, but as she struggled to understand it, and while, the Killing Game was harsh, Kokichi’s demeanor had changed. He had noticed the strange love square with them, all-Rantaro, Kaede, Shuichi and herself, but that was what Shuichi was clinging to.

“What are you guys talking about?” Maki asked coldly.

“You see…”

“Kaede and I….”

“I see.”

“It wasn’t as real as me and Kokichi as I’ve felt what I couldn’t for them, but it still hurt when Rantaro then Kaede died, and poor Shuichi had to be in the middle of it.”

“You were all involved?”

“Yes.”

“Though Rantaro and Kokichi were close, maybe he noticed? I don’t know. Anyone else could but we tried to be discreet as possible.”

Shuichi in the darkness, even if she couldn’t see, believed that he was madly red.

“Regardless, I am weak and while, not dying, miscarrying is a bitch.”

“You were…?”

“Yes, Kokichi. Unprotected sex leads to children and while…I won’t get into it, but what is there to lose when I don’t mind it? I don’t know what he would think but he’s changed.”

“Changed?”

“Nevermind that.”

“Hey, enough chitchat, get her up.” Kaito commanded.

“Thank you, Kaito.”

“No problem. I am after all Kaito Momota the Luminary of the Stars and I do good for my fellow friends.”

“F-Friends?”

“Yes. You’re my friend even if you date that little creep.”

“Hey, he’s **my** little creep.”

Hands hoisted her, as she leaned her head against Shuichi’s and tried her best to remain conscious even if the blood-soaked her.

“You were pregnant…,” Shuichi repeated to himself concerned and while she couldn’t blame him, it was after all his feelings getting in the way of what was gold.

“Shuichi. I’m gladly in love and do what I can for him, even if it means dying.”

“Don’t say that. He should value your life more than his’ and I would do that.”

“Shuichi, it is fine as I know his reasoning.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Shuichi. Please.  Understand that there is more to this than you know.”

“I don’t care.”

“Shuichi. Listen to her.”

The third voice spoke out.

“Kaito?”

“Yeah, you heard me, Shuichi. I believe in her and you should too.”

“You’re too naïve, Kaito, but that’s okay because I wanna believe, too,” Ayumi said, at last, being infected by his nonsensical notions that she desperately wanted no part of but to be in the good graces of Shuichi again…it all brought her back to the endless kisses and pity.

“Why are you trying, so hard? What do you even see in him?” Maki asked curiously.

“You mean, Kokichi? Maybe, excitement or yet, a sense of not knowing why you fall in love with someone. You lose the reasons why as it becomes illogical in every way. Tangling you further until you give up reason entirely and see the world better than what it is.”

What a dodge but knowing at this point, where to know exactly why someone loves each other-physical attraction at first and then their personality? Kokichi was colorful and yet, he was a loss for words and strategies. Lies and beautiful invites to pleasure.

“Have you never been in love, Maki?”

“What kind of question is that!?”

“You heard me. Do you know what romantic love is? What love is in general?”

“It’s pointless to have feelings for each other in such a short time.”

“It happened with Rantaro, Kaede, me and Shuichi-don’t knock the importance of proximity that people often bring.”

“What **DID** happen between you four?”

Shuichi turned his head. “It is all over, like what Ayumi says.”

“Regardless, bring me to my room, why don’t you?”

She was weightless as those arms made her into an angel, one in the darkness of the Killing Game. One that didn’t allow the sadness of death to overcome all others and somehow, with wings, she could fall and fly, too.

Wasn’t that what she meant to do here?

She wasn’t the 17th Ultimate for a reason.

 

 


	21. Moonlight Destiny

**Floating.**

Almost wandering in Ayumi’s mind and kicking back, swinging her legs off the bed, she stared directly into Kokichi’s eyes as he was mum on the entire subject and while, her bed was covered in trails of blood, she tried not to let the weakness overcome her. At least, her body was regaining the strength and while, she had to thank Kaito, she figured he wouldn’t accept it, but what was the moments regarding to this point? Why had she been there in the courtyard?

“K-Kokichi-”

She repeated endlessly on her lips but what was fruitless was his blankness and the fact of the walls coming back up. Did the blood bother him?

“You’re.”

“Please. Don’t. I am fine, really.” She did her absolute best to alleviate the fears culminating within, but she was terrified at the touch, the sudden way he took her hand and so awfully, she screamed as a spasm of pain hit her stomach, and she let go to clutch herself.

He flinched.

It wasn’t over and being so weak, she could hardly stand up to shower, so the blood stayed…and she wouldn’t ask that of Kokichi, as his face was worn. His expression going nowhere.

“Ayumi!”

His nasally voice reverberated, and she wildly glanced up.

“I didn’t know.” She remarked touching the inners of her neck, before gathering those fingers up to her face, the clutching completely unnecessary. “It’s not like it was needed, though.”

“You didn’t.” He replied mindlessly.

“Kokichi, please. Don’t be afraid to touch me again-” Her words were swallowed as she felt the gentle pleasure of his lips and smothered in it; Yet, her tears met those same lips and while, the song of sorrow reached her ears, it still ached. Ached as if emptiness over took her, and the thought of a little life sprung into her false memories. The future she couldn’t grasp and while, he’d be distance more than ever, it was stranger to know that this wasn’t the time for anything, but they were only humans, and could only act as such.

Past, present and future

It all made sense and she knew she’d still be in love with Kokichi Oma, but it was a kaleidoscope of constellations, to make Kaito prouder, that she was happy even though, the Killing Game was occurring, it still had some silver linings.

She melted into Kokichi’s arms, resting her head on that shoulder and just exhaling before inhaling.

Why was he being softer than ever?

Wasn’t he the big bad Ultimate Supreme Leader?

“It’s not enough that the mastermind keeps toying with us and now…”

“Kokichi.”

“It’s sick and pisses me off. You and all of us, deserve better.”

“Then, end this game.” She said softly. “it won’t end, though, and then...Kokichi, don’t think of it as another way but an end to strive for.”

“What will you do?”

“First. Rest. Then, think of a plan and hope that the motive given to us isn’t true at all.”

Yes. That had to be it.

She had heard that Angie was running amok with her Atua god business and people were trapped into it and now, with the motive given of bringing back someone to life….Ayumi waited eagerly perhaps that it was possible but she was with Kokichi now and it would be a dreadful thing to bring back Rantaro now.

“Kokichi, did you know that…?”

“Who would you bring back?”

“You know that…”

“I noticed from the beginning. You four.” He said hiding his face.

Truth?

“But it’s over now.” She responded curtly. “Whatever we had, is over and, I’m happy for that. I mean seeing his body was devastating and knowing that Kaede did that, after, her own feelings were declared, but didn’t she deserve it? She was a terrible person for dragging us along with her twisted love.” The tears were flying off her cheeks and she didn’t have a way to hide it anymore.

Not concealing her disgust and rage.

Kokichi still didn’t reply.

“I mean, it’s over and I’m glad. I mean, I felt sorrow at her execution but then again, I’m the terrible person, aren’t I? At least in the end.” Her own pink hair floating around her face as she cried gently.

“You’re not.”

“Kokichi. I know that it isn’t possible, but I don’t want Rantaro. It was just a crush but what I have with you, is true and real. I’m head over heels in love with you and nothing changes even if Rantaro could come back.”

Another stretch of the imagination and she again experienced the wandering kiss from Kokichi and the hands that gripped her tighter.

Past, present and future


	22. Rise and Shine

 “This has to be a joke, right? I didn’t think it was _this_ bad.”

The remark was directed at the ringleader of this new ‘cult’ that promised the longing and love of Atua, but not everyone was taken in by it, but those that were stood on the new ground above everyone else.

“It is.” Kokichi whispered into her ear, and as she wanted to take his hand into hers’ but the thought was smothered but again, Angie’s words were of a cult leader and their wish…

“To live within this Academy and forget the outside world.” Angie declared in her most sing song voice that she managed properly and to great effect. Her followers were mesmerized and there were several in her ranks.

“We can’t do that!”

“Nyeh.”

Tenko, the Ultimate Aikido Master and Himiko, the Ultimate Magician or Mage, according to her, were in a discord but not knowing their relationship, Ayumi was perplexed; but Angie wasn’t. It was all a calculated move and yet, Ayumi couldn’t comprehend it all. Who wanted the Killing Game to continue, yet was this really the way to do it?

“We are the student council!” Kiibo announced suddenly.

**HIM, TOO!?**

“Kiibo, seriously!” Ayumi cried exasperated that her friend would even dare to fall into the entrapment that Angie had set and yet, who was next? Her brow furrowed at knowing that Ultimate Robot had been ensnared, too. He had better common sense than that, right? No matter how persuasive Angie was, a line had to be drawn somewhere and though, here it was. Ridiculous.

“H-Hey, this isn’t-”

“We’ve decided.” Angie cut off Shuichi as he timidly glanced away.

“YOU CAN’T!” Ayumi found herself battling the sheer stupidity of this situation, however problematic it was, Angie wasn’t correct in her assumption that everyone here strived for the same goals. Angie was bullshitting and using said influence on brainwashing everyone. **No, no…**

 “Stay away!” Ayumi half shrieked as Angie started her approach.

“You heard her.” It wasn’t Kokichi but a proud and daring Shuichi. What gave him the galls to be decisive outside of class trials? Why wasn’t anyone saying anything else?

“I don’t get this.” Kaito said rubbing his head finally.

“Angie, you are full of bullshit, you know? And there’s no way that I’m allowing you to touch me-any by accident or not.

“Of course not, MOMOTA.” Kokichi teased on the verge getting a lashing from Kaito as the fury was spiraling out of anyone’s reach.

“Hey, KOKICHI!”

“Enough. You two. Enough.” Ayumi shrieked satisfied when they both, settled and pivoting her head to glare at Angie. The ringleader. “And you, Angie,” A short intake of air. “You’re the worst, you know? No one wants your bullshit cult shit and if you touch me, I swear to Atua or anyone-”

“You mustn’t swear.” Angie said without any worry.

“I don’t give a flying fuck.”

It was vulgar and uncalled for, but Ayumi felt aggravated at the state of the Ultimates and most of them following the lead of a very eccentric Ultimate Artist, into a hole that could halt everything.

“Ayumi.” Shuichi whispered catching her attention, but without provocation, she thrust forward grabbing the pigtails of Angie and throwing them both down as screams, and yells filled her ears. The pain felt like it could produce blood but how did they live? How could they live here? How could they all forfeit the thought of leaving this Academy?

“HEY!”

“Shut up, Momota.” Kokichi snapped having a varied expression on his face, as if amused and then not.

The duality of his feelings and appearance on the line. What he couldn’t afford to let slip and even though he was betraying the very sentiments, he had to be the villain of this story. Of this moment. In front of the others.

“KOKICHI!”

“Kaito! Kokichi! Please!” Ayumi found herself shouting despite pinning down Angie easily and even then, it brought no satisfaction and even worse- it was a bullying move and with a single word passing through her lips, “Sorry.” She stood up wobbling and staring upward.

There wasn’t any point in giving up the ghost here.

No surrender and yet, Angie was certain that it was better to give up and Ayumi couldn’t accept it, but would it really be so bad? Losing Kokichi in the moments that could pass and remembering his tender touch as it was enough to snap reality back into her.

“I…I don’t know…”

“It’s alright. Atua forgives you.” Angie said cheerfully and while it was puzzlement that followed Ayumi, it was a notion to back her up, but could it be more to this than that?

“I don’t care.”

“You should.” Angie retorted cheerfully.

“AHHH!” Tenko screamed interrupting any other thoughts that could have flooded Ayumi’s brain as the remaining Monokubs appeared: Monodam, Monophanie, and Monotaro and like always they were carrying something heavy in their arms. More?

More?

**“RISE AND SHINE URSINE!”**


	23. Danganronpa Introduction

**Name:**  Ayumi Mizota

**Talent:** SHSL/Ultimate Bibilophile

**Age:**  17

**Family:** Raised by grandparents who are botanists.

**About:**  She calls herself sadistic but maybe that’s not necessarily true but in her mind, she thinks that. She also isn’t afraid to voice what’s bothering her or face problems head-on; But she usually gets complicated emotions and thus, doesn’t know how to be decisive about what she wants in life. She can be quite cruel when the occasion calls for it but also very sweet but practical. She is easily knowledgeable about a lot of different subjects and thus can figure out people and situations but even still, she isn’t entirely powerful in the regards to book smarts. She is quite resourceful and while abhorring murder, she certainly wouldn’t mind getting her hands dirty to be either a blackened or die as a victim to further a case to end the Killing Game. She crushes on guys like crazy and thus always does stupid and impulsive things like kiss or make them go crazy because of her teasing. She is always open about a lot of life and past, though most of it is forgotten or she likes to pretend it doesn’t happen. 

 

 

 


	24. Things We Shouldn't Feel

“Labs? More like added walls.” Ayumi muttered trailing behind Shuichi examining the current shape of the new-found world before them as the labs were presenting more personality to the Ultimates.

“Did you say something, Ayumi?” Shuichi asked piquing her gaze before they burrowed elsewhere to the wonder of Kiyo’s lab, but she admitted that the study of Anthropology was fascinating and knowing that the human development after a while had started sparkling in her eyes, in her own lab, in her own mind.

But Shuichi was clueless for an Ultimate Detective.

_“Bring them back!? Impossible!” Kiibo shouted above anyone but here were the Monokubs presenting the very idea of reanimating the dead, no, bring them back to life. Their souls have gone though it was all debatable. The ideas of souls in general but here presenting the book of the death: The Necronomicon but it was unfeasible and quite dreamful that such a notion existed._

_Would she want Rantaro back or Kaede? Ayumi’s insides burnt at the mere memory of the kisses that infested even the slightest hole in her thinking._

_How in the hell was anything possible here?_

_Why was…?_

_“I wouldn’t even do it for all the money in the world and what you’re purposing is mere bullshit.” Ayumi snapped at the sight of the book which was so grotesque to anyone’s eyes._

_“Now, now,” Monodam said robotically but of course out of the all the Monokubs, he was the hardest to explain but they weren’t real as far as she could see. They weren’t living creatures at the slightest junction._

_“We have to decide.” Tsumugi clapped her hands together._

_“I’m not. It’s bullshit. We shouldn’t.” Ayumi snapped at the Ultimate Cosplayer but Tsumugi was the plainest as even her manner of speaking was bare of any real emotion but knowing the consequences of such an act was paramount._

_“It’s possible to,” Kiyo spoke up in her nonsingular voice. “To bring a body back but a life? Impossible and it’s been attempted but who’s to say that we won’t be successful? But to bring back a person with the purposed soul is a matter onto else.”_

_“We should pick someone to bring back!” Angie exclaimed breaking the disillusionment that had claimed as her fellow student council members backed her but how did it come to this?_

_“No. It’s folly to think to bring the dead back to life.” Kiyo said warningly._

_“We will pick Rantaro! No murderers like Kaede-”_

_“Hey!” Shuichi found his voice but it snuffed out quickly._


	25. Something Is Underfoot

“Don’t be stupid, Shuichi.” Ayumi barked interlacing her fingers together but it wasn’t further on that she could ponder on, it was a Killing Game and no doubt, the doors were once again opening. Who else could be there? Who else would be marked for death? Didn’t Kaede…It was futile to fight the upcoming sentiments but Ayumi was reminded that this was a reality she desired less to be in.

“I’m trying, Ayumi. Please.”

“I have no desire to.”

“You can’t be…” He frowned.

“You can’t make me and that’s it, Mr. Ultimate Detective.” She was obstinate in the worst possible manner but hearing the shriek of Angie and even glancing inside her lab was quite disastrous and nauseating. He wasn’t the only one experiencing the same but with some luck, some understanding, he would get her grievances.

Would he?

“This is all fake…”

“What is?”

“We’re playing more of their game and their nonsense of bringing back…” She violently threw out the very wish that it was all over, that this game was faked. That this game was rigged against them and here, belief alone couldn’t bring back a soul. It couldn’t…they weren’t bringing back that endless sky and there was no clarity in the sins committed here.

“You’re still,” Shuichi began but she snatched his forearm. “Ayumi.”

“Shuichi Saihara. Listen. To. Yourself. You’re a detective, you are the very reason, the logic that we often can’t forget. Think of it. Whether if you believe in a soul or not, this is a trap. A trap we are settling into.”

“I know, Ayumi. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten that.”

“Then. Why. Shuichi?”

“You want them, too, don’t you? What happened between us?”

She froze.

It wasn’t lifetimes ago but the very recent past and like an underbelly waiting to be thrown asunder, she couldn’t quite placate the real instructions guiding her own body.

“Shuichi. Don’t you know how much we loved…”

“You and Rantaro…”

“I had no way of knowing then. You can’t fall in love with anyone in such a short time, and thinking, purposing it is our way of coping right? Shuichi. I let it get to me. We were all so frightened at dying. We were frightened and clung onto each other.”

“That doesn’t explain-”

“Shuichi, let it be. We must and should end this game and through my own way, I’ve been trying. Trying and reading about the various methods…”

“Yes. You’re the Ultimate Bibliophile, which I forgot.”

“Yes. I learn virtually through books anything. Anything and even reading classics like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and even other figures like Herlock Sholmes in the Arsene Lupin series has taught me a lot. But I know in just my gut, that this will end up being terrible.”

“Ayumi.”

“Then, if you’re so damn persistent, Shuichi Saihara, then, if everyone tries, someone will die, wouldn’t they? This is the prelude to the insistent murders.”

“I understand-”

“Don’t pretend to understand me.”

“Ayumi.”

**Murders.**

**Murders**

And here was the swirling under tale of an upcoming trial and how they both knew the outcomes.

And how they found Angie in her lab murdered then the screams of Himiko reverberating through the séance room afterward (another murder) and all the while, Ayumi struggled to believe yet nothing changed her mind. Nothing except the harshness of death.

“TENKOOOO!”

“Funny. How she cares now.” She remarked entering the trial room.

 


	26. News To Me

“Is that the truth?” Shuichi mouthed besides Ayumi but she was preoccupied with the muffling of tears coming from the distraught Himiko. They were reverberating and quite terrifying, too. Quite terrifying at the misdirection of emotion.

“Tenko. Tenko. I should have-”

“Discussing the murder and thus finding the culprit is our main priority, is it not?” Korekiyo asked knowing too much that everyone was turning to him but who could have done this? How? Why?

**No.**

Of course.

“That book.” With glistening rings of droplets on Ayumi’s eyelashes, her voice was full of timber, “I knew it. Monokuma.” Replacing the heavy pose, she cranked her head sideways.

“What’s this.” Kokichi finally responded almost vaguely amused.

“Monokuma. I’m right aren’t I?”

“Pardon?”

“Cut the shit, Monokuma. Tell everyone here how you fed them complete bullshit. Complete lies.” She hissed vehemently turning and rolling her tongue in her mouth, but it was with certainty that truth could be solved here. A truth that ended up rescuing them all and then the weight of the world could be avoided, right? No, her cries inside were inconspicuous and discarded yet, the weight of the world was here on these small shoulders. The weight of the world remained.

Breaking further down, the grueling process of rooting out the killer would be agonizing.

Was the fortitude in them all? Was it present in Shuichi? Was it worth driving it all out? No, why preserve their lives if the time limit just decreased? Wasn’t death the ultimate reward?

“So, Angie was found in her lab and what was there? Anyone care to explain it? Or is Shuichi and I will have to do this? You can thank us later when we save your lives.”

“Don’t be so crass Ayumi. Have more faith in it-” Maki began but with a twirl of Ayumi’s lips and even again her tongue, she let the warnings bounce off.

“I don’t believe a killer and I certainly would accuse you but seeing as you-”

“Hey! Don’t blame Makiroll!”

“K-Kaito.” Shuichi began taking the reins of the investigation and while through these proceedings something came forward and back in Ayumi’s mind but it wasn’t her that was aching to pounce.

“We need to set that Angie was trying to bring back the dead through the book but here on this page and the instructions…”

“She didn’t follow through.” Ayumi finished Shuichi’s aching and horrifying thought but it was certainly raising rising eyebrows.

Together and yet separate with her hands in her pockets and only then the discussion continued, soon with the ending plainly here, she in bated breath, waited. Waited and resumed when the vote was presented although she was on the other side of it, she felt like being sentenced to an even longer imprisonment.

How disgusting that Kiyo would presume to think his sister wanted the death of 100 girls? Incest on its own had societal qualms only because it was debunked and linked to so many genetic defects plus, it was easy to fall in love with anyone in that proximity that controlled you. True control.

True inconsequential desires led astray thus the finale was overwhelming.

Overwhelming and puzzling to the outpouring emotion that Himiko felt afterward and while that appreciation was gone, the realization of how little the presence was had made a bigger impact and made the ineffectual life more precious.

“W Why am I…?” She whispered wiping her sleeve against her damp cheeks.

“Because you understand.” Shuichi responded.

“Don’t we all? S-Shuichi.”

“Ayumi.”

“I’m sorry that I doubted you. You are always so good if uneven but you saved us too many times to count and seeing Himiko here, makes it plainer than a day at how I’m feeling. At how I should feel. Shuichi Saihara. Too bad, we couldn’t, we couldn’t ever, but with some chance, paths are taken.”

“Ayumi, it’s not too late for anything!” Shuichi spoke harsher but with a slight cough, he raised his hands.

“I’ve made my choice, Shuichi. I’ve decided on the course of action for my life. I’ve decided on what matters most and while, it’s a difficult road, I know the uncertainty is the best part.”

Downtrodden and letting the lasting impression get more to her, she couldn’t fail to sum it all up quietly.

“Shuichi Saihara. I do need you but I need Kokichi as well and even stupid Kaito. I need to know that when the time comes that you’ll do the right thing.”

“A Ayumi!”

“What I mean is…What I wanted to say is…I wish I could say more anyhow, we can’t linger and neither can anything of me.”

Another murder

Another way to figure out

 

 

> **Murderer: Korekiyo Shinguji**
> 
> **Murdered: Angie Yonaga and Tenko Chabashira**


	27. Love Is...

Losing

Slowing down was so minuscule to her but with some strikes against her skin and whatever she dreamed of was guiding the hand of destruction.

Losing

Why was she thinking twice about this all? They -The other ultimates had cast another of their group into death but didn’t it equal to the lives taken? She couldn’t quite reconcile the vastness of the decisions they had to take, the way of death’s fanatic hands. Fanatic and demeaning.

Her fingers glided over her dent and scratched skin but hiding it was optional, wasn’t it? 

Slowly just…

Spreading herself as she fell with pillows and blankets disguising the achiness shattering her heart.

How long was this Killing Game meant to be played? How much more were they meant to die? The trials were eating the very tears gleaming her dirtied cheeks and this wasn’t living anymore than they wanted. Anymore.

“Shuichi?”

Her hands quivered as she found herself resonating to the rings of the door and dragging her feet to the door, she casually if quietly jarred open the door. Why had she thought it was Shuichi? Was it more than she wished?

“Hellloooo girlfriendddd.”

A smile could be heard on her lips.

“Kokichi. This isn’t a good time.” She motioned off from his view, but he was persistent made the situation worse. Made her wounds a bit barer.

“Why noooot?” He chimed in happily, but he was anything but.

“You don’t have to act, Kokichi. You and I…”

His face fell dark while her hand steadied on the door handle. Would he just leave? Would anyone just leave?

The blood was trickling down now but she held on best as she could, but it wasn’t enough, nothing ever way.

“I know.” He stated seriously.

“It-It’s just not a good time, you know?”

“You took the trial a bit too…”

“A bit too what?” She paused. “I wasn’t relishing it as you claim to do. I was merely stating the obvious or refuting the lies that Monokuma kept sprouting. There’s no way to bring someone back and Angie was duped by it. I am certainly not.”

“You sound like Shuichi.” Kokichi teased through the bigger gap between them.

“Please. I’m not full of naivety like that Ultimate Detective.”

“Don’t have to be.”

“K-Kokichi.” Her voice became weaker as the blood began appearing outside the door yet, Kokichi made no passing mention to it except to pry the door open further and push her onto the bed while her heart rushed. Rushed as his lips fervently meshed against her’s. Did he know? Did he want to know?

They hadn’t…They hadn’t in a long time but while her heart was bursting at every caress, she wondered how he knew-intently knew where the spots that made her moan come from.

“K-Kokichi.”

“No more.” He advised pressing more kisses through his open mouth and her desiring him more than ever. “No more.”

“K-K-”

She was struck with embarrassment by her leg, but the passion laid within though she always felt shocked, if unsure if he meant all he said but why would he even bother with her, the Ultimate Bibliophile?

“Make love to me.” She heard his voice all heavy and sustained by his warmth say.  “I want it. I want it from you.”

More statements yet, her hands were jittery as she slowly slipped off his shirt revealing his slim body all perfect and assured.

“I want you, Kokichi Oma.”

The moments drifted off soon than later and when he had everything from her, he kept her nearer still, almost never fueling more of his undeniable passion. Their lovemaking was smooth and precious to them both and when she tasted the very hot cum dripping from underneath his cock.

Rubbing the very balls as he took sharper breaks with his short moaning as more cum shot out heavier than usual and directed to the very opening of her pussy.

“K-K-Kokichi.” She stuttered breaking down and out with his unkempt hair crossing on her shoulder. “I love you.”

“Ayumi. It felt good…?”

“Always. Let me have you for as long as I can.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. Take it as an oath, oath that I refuse to break.”

If eternity spat out the hellfire that she felt compelled to exchange herself in then she never wanted to let go, never wanted him to say no to the oath and to have him forever if a place existed in this Academy.

“Promise me, Kokichi, that you’re mine forever that you’d want to stay forever.”

First love be damned. Love should be cursed but swearing in his arms, swearing her heart before him.

“Don’t be silly, Ayumi. It’s already…”

“Already?”

His bangs fell shortly above his eyes almost if she was expecting a varied response but he nestled his head further into shoulder.  Love was allowing the very worst and best to occur still expecting to be betrayed along the way. She pecked the top of his head with affection and tenderness. It was bittersweet to be in a Killing Game with no choice but to scheme and wound each other but it wouldn’t come to them, would it?

“He’s asleep.” She blinked upon wrapping blankets upon him as the sincerity of love was embracing them both. First love. First love.

 


	28. Take A Bow

_“Kokichi…Shuichi…don’t do this to me…”_

Her voice was reckoning to something more awful but here she was starting over, here she waned greatly wanting a home of her own; so why give in to carnal desires? Why did her heart…? Why was she swimming towards them anyhow? Why was she reaching for them? Why was her mind coming to that conclusion? Wasn’t the choice already settled so now when did the question become who to love wholeheartedly? Who to place faith in now that a heart of hers was delicate.

Why was she loving the very best of the Ultimate Detective and Supreme Leader?

Surely the lies were sacrificing her yet, no goals existed other than to survive although she wasn’t satisfied by that prospect for her heart rushed. Her heart fluttered at the chance encounter with both of them and as she gave herself willingly to the Supreme Leader and him, in turn, trusting her. How could a heart measure up to them both?

Kokichi was sleeping if restlessly but she kept the best eye on him tangling her fingers through his drying hair which the shower completely changed the look and feel of him. Him bumping against her, kissing and feeling the way around almost starting over.

“A-Ayumi…”

“Kokichi?” She exclaimed if slightly above her normal tone but he didn’t stir not even a minute or a second more. “Why is my heart…why am I hurting? I love you yet, there’s no way to express the very essence of what I will do or say.” Hot exasperated tears overflowed the very way she wanted but it wasn’t the gentle wind she expected nor yearned for and while her sniffling was way too silent, she couldn’t help but mutter her “I love you” to the endless love she kept locked away and releasing it to Kokichi.

“Pleasee don’t cry for me.”

Another line of sweetness overpowered and kept her pinned down as she recognized the blurry image of Kokichi Oma on top, his hair now taking a familiar shape.

“I never thought I’d hear you say something so different.”

“Please. I care a whole lot, don’t you see?”

“Kokichi. You’re something and I wish you wouldn’t have to lie to everyone…I wish they could see you as I do but that sort of vulnerability…I understand.”

“Ayumi.”

“Maybee I don’t want them to or else it would be something else, wouldn’t it?” His playful banter failed if not worsen the quivering tears. “Don’t be sad for me.”

“Kokichi. You’re just terrible, you know that, don’t you? You’re making me feel worse than before but that’s okay because that’s something that lies can fix, right?”

He was transfixed as she froze before regained some composure and wandered to the shut door, swinging her hands on the handle as she was after all in her room but he wouldn’t go, would he?

“I don’t try.”

“Oh, Kokichi. I’m done with this Killing Game.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re not done with that, are you?”

“No, Shuichi.” Ayumi bit harder down on the apple, having to scavenge food from the endless supplies of the kitchen but it was empty. The passion of the kitchen was seemingly silent. Kirumi was gone. She had to be after all.

“No, I don’t wanna join you or Kaito. He’s a hotheaded idiot.”

“You don’t have to say it like that.” Shuichi’s ahoge stiffened before relaxing.

“Why did you really come here, Shuichi Saihara?”

“Because of yesterday.”

“What of it?” She snapped putting the rest of the apple, half eaten in her open palm. “I thought I made myself clear, right?”

“Please stop seeing Kokichi.”

“This is sudden. Are you jealous?” She chided dropping the apple beneath her feet before returning to his gaze. “Didn’t we go over this before? Why pretend to care more or did you never stop?”

“I…I never did. What happened with you, Rantaro and K-Kaede?”

She paused lost. “I cared-I liked Rantaro but he always was too serious, maybe too laid back? I don’t know but I do know that I was attracted to him so fast and Kaede…”

That kiss.

That vulnerability.

“What about her?”

“She’s more than she seemed, Shuichi. You’ve missed the best part of her.” She remembered the emotion expressed-the music that swam in her ears, the melody of love that sprung upward from her own tongue. “I guess after Rantaro was murdered, I couldn’t believe that Kaede did it and her death so damn brutal. This is what awaits us, Shuichi. This Killing Game.”

“Are you relishing in it too?”

“No. I want it ended but frankly, I don’t know how,” She smiled half exhausted and sorrowful. “I don’t think-no, I know Kokichi doesn’t want it either. He cares about all of us but he’s just terrible and this game brings out the worst in us all.”

“T-That’s not true.”

“It’s not lies. Think of it like this, Shuichi. We all tell ourselves lies whether they are small or big, they are lies but the truth is painful and only one of it, so why take that truth when it means the end? When it means that you’re alone? I lie all the time, Shuichi. I’m lying to myself about the hurt-the ache in my chest but would I say more to you or anyone? No. The truth is, I don’t want to face it. No one does.”

“A-Ayumi. That-”

“—Makes no sense.”

She perked her head up.

“Oh, hai, Kaito. Come to be a stick in the mud? Anyhow, you’re steering and allowing your lofty ideas into Shuichi’s head. Come to think of it, you’re the only one idiotic enough not to be pulled into lies.”

“Damn right.” He balled up his fist.

“Take young Shuichi and leave.”

“You’re treading on the wrong tracks, Ayumi. You’ll get hurt—"

“I know as I know it. I’ll take the pain, you know? He’ll break my heart eventually and that’s no lie. That’s my truth.”

“NO! I don’t want that!”

“Shuichi. You’re too pure for this game,” She frowned. “Too pure for me anyhow.”

He shook his head and for once she felt that he was shaking his heart, too but why think that now?

“You and Kokichi are breaking my heart even now. So, take a bow, Shuichi Saihara.”

Kaito for once was speechless and now inching towards Shuichi, a partner, a buddy but how did that last for? In this Killing Game?

“I-I don’t want that!”

“Shuichi, darling.”

She almost swore that he could cry, cry now but he had the right to.

The right way to throw off this masquerade.

“A-Ayumi!” Shuichi threw up his arms almost connecting to her own barren hands. “W-Why-”

“Just be honest.” She snipped.

“I love you.”

She half smiled and sadly, she took his head into her hands, stroking the very ahoge that she grew to like. “That’s right, Shuichi. No more lies. Take that bow. You can’t change my heart, not when I’m in love with him,”

“You don’t have to be!” Kaito’s voice rang out. “My partner is expressing his heart to you and you’re-you’r—”

“Don’t Kaito. I respect her. I won’t.”

“No, I don’t need protecting when my own heart is breaking as if I expected this eventually.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way!” Shuichi’s voice grew louder as he broke free as if surrendering to desires wasn’t wanted. “I won’t say I’ll protect you or anything…I’ll do my best to meet that truth and that truth is you won’t get hurt if you…”

“Don’t let Kaito rub off on you, Shuichi.”


	29. The Stars Of Love

 “I..I…”

“Don’t have to say it…”

Faltering, Kokichi pinned her harder against the wall with his tongue wailing and lashing down her throat.

Her body was jelly now with him dropping his shirt and bandana again but stripping her now in quick succession, but she was stuttering upon witnessing the full frontal of his body.

“You’re mine, got that?”

“I can’t forget as you won’t let me.”

Bestial instincts shattered as he entered her again, but it was different almost he was forcing his heart out, but she couldn’t deny the impulsion of his cock hitting the spot that left her withering in remarkable pleasure. What the hell indeed.

Her fingers wrapped and dragged his head closer as his tongue whipped on her nipples almost as he wanted to cup her breasts.

“Y-You’re mine.” He repeated grunting as motion rocked them both.

“Let me go on top.” She muttered in the space between his pandering and whimpering self but he happily, if not obliged.

Carefully, he laid back first as she sat down on his erection with the insides of her throbbing along because she was at the tip of orgasm and wanted him to also enjoy it. The innards of them both, so close and intimate as they both only wanted the other in this way. Why had the Supreme Leader become a puddle beneath her?

Love was a doing word.

It was a verb.

“Oh, Ayumi,” He cried possibly in double moaning as she became frantic in her shaking against his cock, but it was more than this. It was always that, wasn’t it? She loved this Ultimate Supreme Leader and wanted a better life outside this academy and the Killing Game. Would he though? Would he tell her that he loved her? “I love you.”

Then like a burst, she orgasmed as he did too but as it crossed her mind, she wanted to cuddle against him and forget the world. Forget about being lost.

Afterward, her face planted in his chest as he casually if not subtly caressed and ran his fingers through her crazed pink hair.

“I w-want to be with you.” He exclaimed gazing at the ceiling.

“So, the supreme leader boyfriend of mine…finally admits it.” She suppressed a giggle but, in all seriousness, she had waited for him to admit the verb. The love first loves to sustain itself.

“I h-hate the thought of not…”

“You’re going too soft on me, Kokichi.”

“I-I..won’t lie to you, anymore.”

Her eyes widen.

“K-Kokichi,” She went furiously scarlet. “You’re lying now, don’t you know? The Killing Game is afoot and more will die…please take care of me.” She mumbled at last.

“I’m not.”

“Then. Don’t worry about it anymore. I’ll protect you, Kokichi Oma.”

“Marry me.”

“Huh?” Her head lifted as magical words were spoken but weren’t magic plausible despite Himiko’s say? “D-Don’t do that.”

“I-I may be lying.”

“Then keep it to yourself-”

“No. I’m not.” He concluded seriously.

“Kokichi. We’re too young and-”

“And what second in command?”

She was now leaning up throwing a pillow at his head. “Maybe when we get older and then I’ll consider it but now, let’s keep this moment peaceful, together.”

“Then, it’s a promise.”

“Can you even keep one? I doubt you’ll love me that long.” She repressed a laugh, but his actions were not tone deaf and his face didn’t betray his inner thoughts. No contradictions. No lies. No rebuttals.

“I will.”

“Then stay safe, Kokichi. Please stay safe.”

Was that a threat? Was it a good threat? Were the stars with them now? Were the endless chasing and daunting tribulations ending?

“I can’t promise anything.”

“Then-”

“Buuuuut I can promise my devotion to you.”

“I love you then, Kokichi Oma. Just don’t change.”


	30. Crystal Clear

“Hey!”

Ayumi began poking Kiibo’s shoulder as if eliciting a response was enough to satisfy any kind of desire in her but merely because she loved poking things. Why? She wasn’t really normal, to begin with and while she had kept her personality under wrap for the most part, the longer she stayed cooped up with everyone, the more the playful side emerged or weird depending on anyone’s stance.

Breakfast.

Morning.

She was still poking Kiibo.

“Can I touch it? I mean, your ahoge.”

“You sound so childish like Kokichi, here and I don’t appreciate it.” Kiibo said a bit rushed and flustered at her conspicuous request.

“You don’t have to be so mean, ya know? I just think it’s weird to have that single strand of hair up like that like Shuichi’s-I bet he’d let me touch his’-” She paused. “That sounded oddly sexual…oops, not my intent, so ignore me but you’re pretty cool Kiibo but I don’t get something,”

“What is that?”

“Why do you wanna be human anyhow? There’s nothing special about humanity in general when all we do is just…”

“Murder?”

“Besides that.” She retorted faster than Kiibo or anyone could spin despite the dwindling members of the Ultimates but Kokichi wasn’t here-why would he? Everyone besides her hated his guts but was that really wanted to be? Another villain. She let out a quick breath of annoyance.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Kiibo. I mean, everything, okay, just everything. This isn’t what I wanted-I mean no one wants this, right? I don’t think I can do this again.”

“No one does.”

“Why don’t we stop trying to self-preserve ourselves and just die?”

“That’s morbid from you, Ayumi.” Kiibo exclaimed. “I can see the logic behind that but isn’t that what Monokuma wants?”

“Fuck what he wants. I think we should definitely spin the turntable on him and just kill himself? I don’t know. I don’t know how much longer…” She stroked the inner of her thigh.

“You’re hurt.”

“I did it myself.” She mumbled.

“Why? Why would you hurt yourself!?” Kiibo exclaimed louder than Ayumi wanted but he couldn’t realize the volume of his voice was bouncing into the silence that perpetrated forward.

“It’s not like I wanna die or something…I mean,”

“It could get infected and-”

“OKAY MOM!” She yelled perking up as some of the Ultimate emerged from the door and with her brow furrowed, she let out a long sigh. “I’ll tell you once, Kiibo, dear, you say anything to anyone about this-”

“Is this a threat?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t need yours or anyone’s pity.”

“What would Kokichi say?”

She froze almost ripping at the seams, but she doubted that he had time to think about her own problems; She was alone, too. They all were. They always were.

“I..I can’t tell him. Not here. Not now.”

“You should.”

“What can he do about it? We are stuck here until someone commits another murder and does that sound pleasant to you?”

Indignant.

Rage.

And lastly despair.

“You have your friends.”

“I suppose if they don’t hate me already for dating Kokichi. I mean that’s one big damper on any friendship…”

“It shouldn’t define friendships.”

“Tell that to these teenagers.”

“Aren’t you one too?”

“I guess so but I am aware of this all, you see?”

“I mean, we’ve had to accept-”

“Tolerate.”

“I mean your relationship with Kokichi is quite…”

“Intimate.”

Kiibo at this point started the lecturing pose with a finger out and somehow she felt that scolding would be on the agenda or the death of her. Could she really die from being chided?

“Hey, I’m not broadcasting it or anything but you guys have a hard time supporting a fellow Ultimate.”

“He isn’t the best person.”

“I’m not idiotic. I know his reputation but again, I had a choice…and this is what I’m doing. There’s no going back from here. To take the easy and safe way or take a chance and get my heart broken. That’s just being a human. It’s irrational on all levels and you gotta grasp that Kiibo if you strive for humanity.”

“I’m sorry I offended you.” Polite and refined

Anything but ordinary.

Anything but that.

“It’s okay, Kiibo. It isn’t like people understand what I see in him and I doubt anyone would realize that. Anyhow, enough on that.”

“You love him. That’s your thinking?”

She clutched at her jacket slightly.

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

“It’s not like I don’t see myself in him but he’s different too, but I can’t explain it. Just trust me on this….no matter what he has done. I know he has his own reasons why.”

“You shouldn’t trust that little shit.” Maki interrupted with an intent hate burning in her eyes, but nothing deterred Ayumi from saying more but they wouldn’t get it right?

“Yeah! Tell her, Maki Roll.”

“Don’t call me that.” Maki glared at Kaito but when did this become a big party?

Nothing was worth explaining any more, all she could do was take the hurled abuse and sweep it off her shoulders, but they weren’t presented the whole truth. The truth in the myriad of lies.

“Don’t harass my girlfriend.”

“Kokichi!” The voices gathered together.

 **G-Girlfriend!?** Was he saying that out loud now?

“Ayumi.”

She automatically popped up snatching the very books sprawling beside her and found Kokichi’s hands pleasantly warm and scented. Was it always that way?

“You guys have nooo life.” Kokichi kept a grin and all Kaito and the others could do was rolled their fists and glare menacingly at the Supreme Leader before they both disappeared, smoke if permitted following them but there was no way that this was repeating. Again. Annoyance. Frustrations.

“I’m figuring this all out… this game.”

Her interest piqued up when it was only Kokichi’s voice resonating in her slightly tired ears.

“G-Game? Oh yeah. You’re going to share that with me?”

“Of coooourse Yumi.” He retorted not missing a beat.

“You haven’t said that in a while.” She replied a bit surprised by the tightness of his grip. He trusted her, didn’t he? Wasn’t his paranoia worst more than ever?

“You’re my second in command, correct?”

“Y-Y-Yes.”

“Then act like it Yumi.”

“S-Sorry.” She buried her head further into his hands, but he quickly dug them out as he continued to walk on.

“Don’t do that anymore.”

“Kokichi?”

“This.” He paused in both movements and words while yanking her along. “What you’re doing to yourself.”

“O-Okay.”

“I won’t tell you anything unless you stop and I know you want that.” He teased with a smirk, but did he mean that now? She didn’t suspect sarcasm or lies but genuine emotion. “This game has an audience.”

“An audience?” She repeated and then it snapped in her head. Why else would it be that way? She didn’t find time to shrug it all the way because it all felt plausible. It was, wasn’t it? Why did rules exist other than to have someone watching?

“K-Kokichi.” She sheepishly muttered.

“I’m doing something…”

“Something?”

“I have a plan dear Yumi. I want you to trust me completely.” His tone shifted abruptly and she was all ears to anything he planned on telling.

“Then you have to do the same. That’s what love is about-trust.” She repeated back from what she learnt from books and many romance novels that she once paid no mind to except to read anything she got her hands on.

Could he lean on her?

“K-K-Kokichi…you’re too soft…” She whispered as he pinned her viciously against the on-campus gardens but how did they get here so fast?

“Ammmm I?” He had a sing-song voice going on as he turned her around. “Did Miu tell you she discovered something interesting…you weren’t there, were you?”

“No. I was sleeping and catching up some reading. What about this discovery?”

“I learnt something…”

A finger to his lips while he had her twisted to her back, hands freely groping her breasts, but it was a tenderness that she allowed and it was amazing to be touch to be repeatedly felt up by him.

“Miu is going to try and kill me there.”

“You mean-”

“Think virtual reality, dear Yumi. She explained it a few hours ago.”

“I see. So, you have a plan?”

“I do and I’m telling you now, so you aren’t surprised.”

She managed to get a hand free and began reaching and grabbing a hold of his crotch yet no resistance as she felt his erection getting harder and harder in her palms.

“Do you want me that bad?” He joked but his face darkened into a twisted version, yet no determent followed as she did fished inside his pants, his zipper easily down. “Someone is…a bit kinky.”

“You’re no different, Kokichi Oma.”

“Then take me, Ayumi Mizota.” He said in a hushed voice.

Twisting back, she wound down to her knees catching his cock in her steady hands, kissing the tip though she expected some reaction, he groaned holding her head down as her tongue lashed against the shaft.

“Y-Y-Yumi..please.”

“You’ll cum in due time. Just relax. Let me have fun.” She gave her own twisted expression, but she never could compete with his’ nor did she feel the need to.

“P-Please..let me..”

“Oh no, Supreme Leader how do you like being at the mercy of your second in command? Time for a coup it seems.”

“Then, I’ll have to retaliate.”

“You do that now.”

“Like this?”

It was her turn to moan rapidly as her jacket and blouse were breached and his hands were prodding and smothering her breasts and pinching her already hardened nipples.

“Oh. Kokichi. I love you and want you for whatever time I can. Please say yes to me.”

“Yes.”

As he slobbered and left hickeys on the edges of her neck, she was lost in euphoria and could tell that passion was falling suit. And there they made love, played or whatever they could call it in front of anyone if they passed but it was daring and exciting lastly it was about trust.

Whatever plans were discovered…

Whatever he needed.


	31. Rain Drop

Was trust that important? Yes, the very liar that sought to obscure the path of others now was revealing his plan through not only spoken words but written. She took the trust and held it calmly as if she happened to acknowledge it all but each time he paused, she longed to grab Kokichi and kiss away the pain. Kiss the memories of torture in his mind.

 She resisted but he found her shifting uncomfortably on his packed bed.

His room was beginning to be filled with evidence of murder and that whiteboard was only standing still and as she eyed it, the message underneath her name remained though she noticed more had been added but making eye contact with him every few seconds produced difficulty to find the rest of the message.

It wasn’t simple nor clean to what was occurring, but she was always the last to know and the reason why she spaced out a moment or two between his phrases.

“Yumi?”

Why did they always say what they didn’t mean?

How could she no to anything he asked of?

How could she do that?

How could she reconcile the death of others to the present moment with him? Wasn’t it all crushing them all? How selfish of her to be naïve yet could she keep feigning? If everything was just right…if a lifetime wasn’t too precious and far off.

She was petrified of dying and in gruesome ways that she completely forgot the plan he was speaking of and reached out with a quivering hand and grasped his’. Everything wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine. They all said what they didn’t mean.

They couldn’t.

Why would they want to be frank in a Killing Game?

He covered that hand with his other just wrapped up in the sweetness amongst the stench of the possibilities of murders.

Recalling his motive video, made her tightened her grip and he returned in full propelling over and pecking her tenderly on her chapped lips as it became a blessing. A blessing.

“Kokichi. Be careful and I know you won’t hear it from me again but try to understand where I am coming from.”

“Nee hee-hee, I have it covered, Yumi.”

“That’s what I am afraid of.” Her face twisted into an overwhelming distraught that came perfectly but he was unchanging. He was, Kokichi Oma, after all. Ultimate Supreme Leader. “Whatever you do listen to me being all silly and worried..haha.”

“You’re not.” His face went into a very frightening place and she had to endure the blackness around his eyes and the whiteness of his face shone enough to reflect her.

“Then!”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Yuuuumi? You’re mine and nothing will happen.”

“That’s-”

“New or not,” He halted briefly. “I mean it as a leader of an evil organization.” His face processed back to normal, well his normal with his purple eyes just staring into her own as she fidgeted with her multicolored glasses.

“OH! Please, Kokichi!”

And in that moment, the world turned upside down with her hair cascading beneath her head, as she shuddered afraid of falling.

Why was everything so calm?

“I told you.”

“Kokichi, what are you…?”

Hunched over and pinning her to the floor with a steady if meaningful grasp, Kokichi was anything but ordinary. Who would be ordinary with their talent? They never time to kill yet nothing was held back for them, the audience or not. These feelings were valid, their lives were in the reach of the sky they couldn’t recognize.

Her glasses crumpled to the side as he drew in her breath as there was no such thing as love songs or stories championing love. Not a nonfiction love song yet here he was where she wanted, and if she thought more, they wouldn’t have collided with a warm fondling in arms to arms. Stories didn’t reach up to the heavens in an unfamiliar sky.

He just squeezed her.

Those smooches increased ardently which each being so odd even she caught a bit of his playful spirit, but she wondered was that him revealing more of the mask? Was anything shattered, and would he continue to say more than he meant to her?

She couldn’t be more gullible in a brush of his lips down on her’ but learning not to worry just made boundless tears massage her pink cheeks.

Call her anything less than a crybaby, wouldn’t he?

“You’re soooo silly Yumi. Don’t tell me you’re a crybaby, too. I don’t think that will do!”

She breathed.

He grinned almost oblivious.

“Sorry about that but I mean it won’t happen again.”

“Make sure of it.”

The seriousness wasn’t there with some reliance, she could read Kokichi better than before, well at least when he was out with her. Didn’t a good girlfriend do that?

 

 

 

 

“A virtual world?” Shuichi asked incredulously to the idea that something of that magnitude existed in the Academy, well Ayumi would expect him to feel that way, right? She was there at the extreme and huge cubed machine with chairs and weird helmets perched on the sides.

“Yeah. Found this and think it’s worth a look.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Of cooourse you don’t, Kaito.”

“Shut up KOKICHI!”

Ayumi felt the sharp stabs of Kaito’s gaze but it wasn’t just him but everyone excluding Kokichi who was aggravated and annoyed.

“Why don’t you have your girlfriend put in a sock in your mouth?”

“Hey!” Shuichi cut in now trying to relieve the situation now brewing.

“Don’t. Kaito,” Ayumi’s voice was trembling but it wasn’t fright but righteous anger. “He may be my boyfriend, but I don’t control him, Kaito. I’m not his mom, got it!? So shut your goddamn trap before I make you.”

“Don’t you dare.” Maki could be heard over the shuffling of feet.

“Why don’t you keep your own boyfriend on his leash, Makiroll?”

Quick. Darkness and Ayumi was held over the ground with an almost crushed throat by Maki’s vicious and unnecessary actions.

“Don’t. Call. Me. That.” She spat.

“Kill me. I want that anyhow.”

The grip was withholding and taking in the fading going on in her mind, and soon consciousness.

 

_Rantaro smiled if sadden by this turn of situations but weren’t they all in the same boat? Wasn’t the message cleared? Ayumi talked softly to the green haired unknown Ultimate, which she brushed past in her mind of someone worthy of her attention though there was this other boy, too…this smaller one along with Rantaro that treated him like a bigger brother or something else entirely?_

_She consciously placed a small amount of sympathy on Rantaro’s back and he wounded up turning and clasping her hands, now closed with the impossible._

_“Hey. Don’t have to do that-Ayumi, right?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“You remind me of my sisters.”_

_“Sisters?”_

_“I have a lot of them but of course I am searching for them. It’s really my fault that they are lost.”_

_“What a responsibility, Rantaro, correct? I feel stupid for forgetting names to faces, but I am just ditzy if not a bit plain.”_

_“You’re not.”_

_“Stop it, okay? Your flirting is just too obvious and…you’re too damn charming for your own good. Could you stop it?”_

_Rantaro chuckled lightly._

“R-R-Rantaro…p-please…” Ayumi mumbled through the spaces between her lips wiping back breath as Maki released and allowed Ayumi to crumble down.

“What did you say?”

She didn’t quite pinpoint the origin of the voice but it was all hushed afterward.

Her face bruised by red, mumbled lightly under her breath. “It’s nothing.” Why had she reached back far into her memory? Why was she pinning for that past, too? Guilt was stupid, wasn’t it?

“Let’s forget that. Miu, you said that you want us to go in…or something like that?”

“Yes, let’s not have you cry again, you bit-”

Almost as far as she heard, the voices were swimming in her ears as she heard a thud but it was her and her turn to slap Miu squarely across the face. Her only turn. Miu Iruma.

The Ultimate Inventor.

The Ultimate Bitch.

“Ayumi! No!”

As much as she loathed to mention it or be out from it, hands she recognized eased the boiling anger, just a touch. A touch of familiarity and love.

Stupid Kokichi.


	32. Isn't It Wonderful

_“This is…”_

_Ayumi began as Rantaro grinned handsomely which almost sparked off a bit of sexual tension between them, but a Killing Game wasn’t meant to have any merits of love in it, right? They were human beings although so, they were teenagers, too, with hormones and if there wasn’t killing surely fucking?_

_“Rantarrrroooo.”_

_She noticed the purple haired boy nudging Rantaro so earnestly, but she couldn’t help but remark at the boy’s simple childlike appearance may be because of his height? She was 5’4” but only because she was blessed with her mom’s tallness, still, he was awfully cute, too._

_“You’re looking a bit hot.”_

_“W-What?”_

_“Your face looks warm, you okay?”_

_“OH! That, sorry.”_

_“He’s like a little brother,” Rantaro announced in succession gazing back at the boy. “He’s Kokichi-”_

_“I can introduce myself. I’m Kokichi Oma and I’m the Ultimate Supreme Leader-”_

_“Can I be a spy against you or the detective or even-” She began with a flicker of excitement in her eyes as if she meant it but that rendered Kokichi a bit on the quiet front. “C’mon! It’s like one of my favorite books! I mean, I love all genres, but spy novels are my thing like James Bond or-”_

_“Come on. You’re going to egg him on.”_

_“Oh, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help it as his talent is cool and now, he needs a cape and bam! You’re probably an evil genius too, right Kokichi?”_

_Kokichi felt like lapping it up but one look, a scolding on pronounced on Rantaro’s lips did Kokichi calm but his playful nature-personality intrigued Ayumi greatly. He was a little cutie but not handsome like Rantaro. What was up with his avocado colored hair? It was way too bohemian and out of anyone’s imagination but her hair? Totally dyed._

_“You’re quite pink.”_

_“Thank you so much-”_

_“But I’m a liar after all-”_

_“Ah, compulsive liar, that’s even better.” With no hint of irony or even missing a beat, she bent over Kokichi as he began stretching over and letting a kiss fall onto those same feelings, she carried about towards Rantaro and surprisingly, he came back, grinning afterward._

_“HEY! That’s gross!”_

_“Kokichi.” Rantaro’s eyes shined a bit. “Maybe you’ll figure it out later.”_

That little troublemaker eventually did and while all the excitement did die, the strapping of the helmets and the plugging in cords, they were all transported to a world beyond the space between them, but before she could breathe in this virtual world, her hands slipped off the chair, clutching Kokichi’s, ever so slightly expecting nothing in return but she was surprised. His response clearly in how his fingers interlaced briefly making a smile return to her lips.

They were wrong about him.

She wasn’t.

He was inherently a liar but tender to a fault if shown the same trust and loyalty.

She didn’t think she could change him, oh no, maybe soften him a bit in this Killing Game, right? Was that possible? At least with her?

Still blinded with the new virtual around and taking in the surroundings, she found herself a bit smaller-chibi really but even cuter with her flowy pink hair rising above her back; Yet no words were formed as she started to process even the other Ultimates.

They were chibis too!

And they walked so funny as well.

“What gives Miu? This is terrible.” Tsumugi pipped up making Ayumi take notice of the very plain if redden Ultimate Cosplayer.

“The graphics are horrible.” Himiko chimed in afterward.

“I for one, like being a chibi. I think we’re all cute! I mean-” Ayumi had to suppress the giggles from her own raw throat again, and again, she couldn’t stop remarking even if silently that they all looked better in this form.

“Nee heehee is Yumi getting all excited?”

“I mean, just a bit-” She stammered realizing that Kokichi was there and immediately, her face went scarlet almost in a maddening fashion. “Hey! You big meanie!”

“Nee heehee. I always love a smile.”

Lies?

To them, he was clearly lying but she read through those lines quickly enough.

“Stop teasing her, Kokichi.” Kiibo warped in front of them all before Kokichi playfully (if only that) slapped Kiibo and suddenly it registered to Ayumi that like in the real world, rules existed. What rules? Soon the room was filled with the lingering Ultimates.

“Y-You look…” Shuichi’s face brightened for a moment before subsiding and she fathoms the deep his state of affection or love, but the decision had been set the moment they met. Still, the wild thought of kissing Shuichi felt electrifying and stroking that ahoge of his’.

“Wh-What are you staring at?”

“You were making kissy faces and mumbling,” Tsumugi said briefly glancing up.

“Oh..Oh. Ignore me then.”

“I don’t wanna,” Kokichi exclaimed childishly. “not with beautiful Yumi.”

“Okay, you’re going to give me cavities, Kokichi-”

“You two, can’t stop for one second, can you?” Miu chimed in appearing from behind. “It’s like you guys are going to bump uglies in front of us all.”

“Shut up,” Ayumi muttered mostly to herself but carrying on wasn’t good at least now in the virtual world and stepping aside immediately grabbing Shuichi from behind amongst the conversations explaining this world. “Shuichi.”

“A-Ayumi.”

Dragging him further and further before reaching outside the room and into a mansion of some sorts yet continuing without any hesitation or resistance. Why was he being so kind now? Why was his love expanding? She could tell with her burning cheeks and her dropping stomach as nervousness even anxiety took hold.

“Stop it, Shuichi.” She huffed.

“Wh-What?”

“You’re looking at me like that it makes me wanna kiss you but…”

“A-Ayumi!”

“I won’t but know that you’re a silly Ultimate Detective. Maybe too brilliant for your own good.”

“A-Ayumi.”

Placing a single finger to her lips to hush him, he reluctantly took her hand, blushing furiously but weren’t they all silly?

“We should get back.” She mentioned parting those same lips again before a swing of arms laced her’s and Shuichi found the courageous sprite to kiss her tenderly before pulling back, Ayumi clearly hated it. Why was the boldness of the Ultimate Detective grating on her nerves so much? He was prying too much while knowing that her admissions were guilty. “For a detective, you know absolutely know nothing about people even worse than love.”

His ahoge straightened at that moment but with some confidence and clutching at her chest, and seeing the world around, she didn’t have to struggle anymore with the knowledge that she could lose or win this Killing Game. What would be the next move? She couldn’t…?

If it meant…. if it meant leaving, if it meant coming home again-the memories all flooded but she couldn’t dare betray Oma in the slightest; She sincerely loved him.

She would die for him.

She’d do _anything_ for him.

Was love enough to save them?

Was love enough to save their relationship?

Their lives?

Would she rather be a blackened or die willingly? For despair to consume her. Yes, yes, she would and when a new murder happened then…it would be time to put the plan into motion.

Life was beyond saving somehow.

Her tears were threatening but were they necessary?

“Why Ayumi sad?”

“Gonta?”

Using her sleeve, she hid her eyes but Gonta, childlike and sweet as ever, was concerned but how to convey the subtle desire of wanting to die or kill everyone here?

“Did Kokichi hurt you? Not a gentleman thing to do-”

“No. No. No. He does the opposite in fact, well at this moment…I’m just…”

“Don’t be sad.”

Loveable and gullible too, no. NO. NO. No. No.

“I can’t help it, Gonta. I…”

“Gonta catch bug and make Ayumi happy again. Gentleman thing.”

“T-That’s fine.”

“You like bugs?”

“I actually have no problem with them.” She paused. “Yes, I like them as I read various books on them and found that their-”

“Then Gonta will find bug. Favorite bug?”

“Ladybug.”

Still, the tears were forthcoming. Couldn’t she be more of a big crybaby? Was it possible to be so messed up to consider murder to get around it? How could anyone…? She knew the answer. The desperation to get out and live again but not here. Not even here could she escape the bitterness of death and despair.


	33. Trace

Ayumi found her voice splintering a bit as she followed Kiibo through the virtual world, but he was quite silent on the whole manner but finally, she heard him through the noise in her head. Dreaming through that same noise.

“I feel uneasy.”

“I’m glad you feel something, Kiibo and no, I’m not trying to be robophobic is anyway, it’s just that I envy you. Unfeeling and mechanical. Why don’t you trade with me?” She half-joked in the seriousness of her own emotions.

“Why?”

“Love. I hate it. I know my heart will be shattered any minute and yet, it’s torn into two, for two different people.” Hands grasped her chest and bundled up her jacked in her palms but holding on was enough, it wasn’t enough to ward off the unwanted cries inside. “I’m silly, aren’t I? I love two people but I’m choosing the harder road in loving Kokichi the way I do. I don’t want to play it safe anymore.”

“I see.”

“I’ve always played it safe all my life now when I got the chance, I took the most difficult love imaginable.”

“Why was that?”

“So, frightened of the consequences. So frightened.” If it wasn’t real, then why did it feel worse than before? Why did this Virtual World feel so cold? “Kokichi will end up hurting me and I’m okay with that.”

“Don’t cry Ayumi.”

“I’ve chosen my way, haven’t I? I too, break hearts, broke poor Shuichi Saihara.”

“He’ll be fine, I believe.”

“How could he? He lost Kaede then, I play with him so how could he be okay with that? How could he not hurt more?” She shook her head, spilling any sense along with it. Irrationality came with love, didn’t it? “I know people say this or that about Kokichi and I know the reputation he has but I truly believe in the goodness in him. I just know a lot-”

“I don’t think he blames you for anything.”

“Why am I making it difficult for myself and crying endlessly?”

“It’s a normal human response-”

“I know that Kiibo, I just happen to do it more to the point of being a crybaby.”

“I don’t think you are. You’re just emotional more so than the rest of us.”

“I guess I understand that.”

Screams then pierced the air and somehow running around across the chapel felt stupid and plain but holding back, she found herself logging out throwing off the helmet and coming across a dizzying scene.

Miu.

Hands grasping her throat and poison on Kokichi’s chair…what? Why? Another murder?

“MOMMY!”

Monotaro, the second to last Monokub was in a panic shouting at the vile scene before them all. Who? What? Ayumi’s stomach flopped and shuddering profusely, she took a gander at what it all meant. Another class trial.  How infuriating. How basic, full of malice.

Everything felt blurry and soon, their brokenness was on full display in another trial for their lives. Their lives meaningless and a show for others to display. What had Kokichi told her earlier that day? She couldn’t quite remember the importance of it.

“So, another go around…” Ayumi whispered to herself.

“Whatcha say?” Kaito remarked giving her somewhat of a side eye but she quickly dismissed his idiocy for something worse. So much eagerness in his voice which gave rise to the impending doom made in this courtroom.

“No point in repeating myself…let’s play everyone.”

“P-Play? This isn’t a game…” Himiko squeaked.

“Might as well be, right? Our lives are garbage to the mastermind and each time our number dwindles which…”

“Aren’t you going to finish that thought!?” Kaito found a balance and went on the offensive.

“No. You don’t need to know.”

“Like hell I do!”

“Kaito, just shut up for once. Just shut up and know that-”

“Enough of this squabbling.” Maki retorted as Shuichi nervously if steadier approached the subject of Miu’s murder.

“We do know that we have a murder weapon-Poison, but can we really call it that?”

“Where did it come from?” Tsumugi asked clearly and painfully stuttering.

“Shuichi’s lab of course.” Kiibo interrupted with his own swirling thoughts but they weren’t to be soft on this. “Someone went to his lab and retrieved the poison to kill Miu with it.”

“Whose seat was it on?”

“Kokichi’s.”

“It’s too obvious, honestly and I’m not saying this because of my relationship with him- only because it seems too simple to pin it on him.”

“What did that poison say, Shuichi?”

Swirling herself, she tried to remain standing but the arguments after arguments were damning honestly and soon, Kokichi was screaming if aggravated to the naivety of Gonta. Why had it gone this way?

“THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE BEEN SAYING THIS WHOLE TIME!!!”

“But Gonta not know…”

“I believe Gonta over Kokichi!” Kaito exclaimed now persuading Ayumi to investigate the fuller picture…remembering the kindness of Gonta and how she never got her Ladybug. She loved them before even butterflies knowing that ladybugs were good luck especially when landing on a hand.

She desired that luck to help them all.

“You’re awfully quiet Ayumi.” Shuichi pointed out, but her muteness wasn’t a choice and its remembrance of Kokichi’s explanation earlier decimated her. The plan was set and she couldn’t ignore the outcome anymore. Placing a fettered hand to her mouth, she realized the importance of Kokichi’s plan and how Miu…

“MAKE LOGICAL ARGUMENTS!”

It wasn’t poison but Miu’s death in the Virtual World as tears rung out from her eyes, now she had to be a crybaby.  Why wasn’t Gonta resisting? Why wasn’t he arguing back? Wasn’t he innocent?

“I’m sorry Gonta.” Her voice was on edge and his simple expression then haunted her…haunted the very memory she only had of him. “Promise me, that you’ll catch that ladybug for me, later, okay?”

**Eyes.**

**Glued.**

**On.**

**Her.**

What had she been talking about?

“Ayumi-Gonta give you…” Streaming down his cheeks were the implications and accusations of being Miu’s murderer.

“I know and I’m sorry about everything.”

“What’s goooing on Yumi?”

“Yeah!” Tsumugi cried afterward.

“Just a promise made between friends, that’s all. A promise that can’t be…”

“Ayumi…Gonta sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve more than made up for it…I just regret not knowing you. Just regret not being kinder to you.”

The votes were cast and only the blackened and not the accomplice would die…yet, Ayumi could have sworn that Kokichi was wearing his heart there in his eyes. The words were frank but soon lies crept in and he had to be the villain. Why the hate? Would he push her away, too?

It was only a matter of time, correct?

With the execution gone and down with, Kokichi’s mask slowly if surely sealed shut on his face and the evilness, the vileness of caring too much, toon much cruelty was there when she knew their relationship was over. Over in those eyes. He’d have to be the villain again to spare her the feelings he couldn’t harbor anymore.

“Kaito!”

Then Kaito’s own illness took over and everyone rushed over except Ayumi and even as Kokichi ran out in a manner, she clutched her own chest, hanging out the exasperated tears. 

It wasn’t fair. Why Kokichi? Why make it up and go with this silly suicide?

Why did the burden always have to fall on him?

The void was real.

The void was right there in her heart.

Utterly alone, she staggered back to Kokichi’s door but not even trying or resisting the temptation, she ended up in hers. Flinging a pillow over her head and bawling into it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music listened to: Trace by Monni, Danganronpa V3 OST, and Blue Bird by Amalee


	34. Little Memories

**One moment**

**One second**

**One minute**

Was all to destroy what hours and days had cultivated and like before, her hands were bleeding but as the glass dug in, she swore that pleasure was it. She’d been crying nonstop from morning to night, night to morning as the days swallowed her whole.

“Be more careful, Ayumi.”

“Shuichi.” Her eyes shone with vulnerability all pulsating against her swollen hands but tangling in her own mangled interior, she found the strength to press her body to the detective. He didn’t resist as if expecting it all. “I need you now.” Her voice heavily faint.

“I won’t take advantage of you.”

“I insist and I’m consenting.”

“No. No. This is not what you want.”

He shoved harder and she budged if slightly as if determined to take the detective by force but halting her own inability to say no, she released Shuichi, while hanging her head low, sobbing as if she was alone as if she was expecting for her heart to be broken.

“I knew this was coming but how could he be so cruel like this? I’d love to think that his cruelty came from his ultimate kindness…he’s always been so kind to me.”

“You didn’t know him, Ayumi. We all didn’t.”

“I refuse to acknowledge him as someone so callous because I’ve felt him. Tasted him, and…”

Flashes of his smile, his caresses all rang through her small frame and she almost doubled over but if heartbreak was the route, she had to endure what about the life that she had to fulfill now? What about this Academy and the way home? The way to the truth?  

“A-Ayumi…”

“Ignore me, Shuichi also, I’m sorry. I got caught up.”

“No. You have every right to feel…I mean, I thought he loved you too…”

“It’s my fault but we gotta focus on the bigger picture here, we gotta figure out this Academy.”

Shuichi grabbed her wrist as she was passing by, his face clearly nervous but a determination sparked in.

“No. He loved you, I don’t doubt that. Don’t give up so easily.”

“Shuichi.”

“I’m with you, Ayumi and I’m happy to be your friend. I’m happy to be there the best I can for you. I will always…”

“You’re too pure for this world, Shuichi.”

“Because I love you.”

“You’re still so gullible aren’t you, Shuichi Saihara?”

Then without a way, they ended up meeting Kiibo in the hall, but he didn’t have much to say other than a weak hello but why were they treating her like a loss? Why because they realized she was played? By a regular prankster? His role was well deserved, and she swore that he deserved an award for stringing her along like that but putting that aside in her mind, they explored more of the Academy, just putting in the last items into their rightful places.

“What’s this place?” Kiibo asked in front a shutter with some sort of electrical field but pulsating back further from Kiibo, Ayumi took a long hard guess.

“I think there’s more behind there.”

“That’s right! **UPUPUPUPUPUPUP!!”**

“EEK!”

“Ayumi!”

Shuichi’s hand grasped Ayumi’s arm firmly but like before, she was left in a daze and contemplating why Monokuma had to appear now. Another aspect of the puzzle? 

“Spill it bear! What’s this-”

Kiibo had already jumped ahead and a blaring alarm reverberated and Monokuma raised his claws but slowly soothed down.

“Kiibo!” Ayumi cried almost dragging Shuichi with her but his grip surprisingly felt comfortable and she had to resist the urge to blush heavily although she had the need to, the cruelty of this game sunk back in. “Be careful.”

“It’s the alarm system. You activated it but you see that control pad? Enter the 59-digit code…”

“Don’t have time for that bullshit, bear.”

“Don’t be testy.” Monokuma teased but a sense of insincerity happened to ring out more and more from this bear and this purposed mastermind. There surely was one, right? Yes, no need to doubt the evidence gathered from those devastating trials.

“Here. You’re free to look in if you want.”

The remote was thrown to Shuichi, who nearly dropped it but taking that free hand, and never let go from Ayumi, he managed just fine as their eyes met briefly, her hurt the only salvation possible. The hurt had to go on.

“O-Okay.”

Monokuma abruptly left unconcerned but all Ayumi and Shuichi did deeply glance into each other; Shakily, she stroked the hand that held her safe.

“You didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to, I wanted to.”

“You just said that, Shuichi.” She half teased finally releasing that smile but never that record of his facial features which was highlighted with a faint smile that he had lost here. She’d never seen the detective so happy, so delighted and he was quite beautiful, but she hung back on her own torn feelings.

The sting of a breakup running down her face.

“I don’t think we should-” Kiibo began but was slowly drowned out by the rhythmic beating of hearts finding one another. “Shuichi? Ayumi?”

She could count on him for sure but lost in the moment, they broke from it only when their hands interlaced, and shivers were slithering down her back.

“You can’t run from him, can you?” Shuichi sweetly if sorrowfully asked aware of her hesitation and now refusal to go further. “And I don’t want you to anymore.”

“Don’t worry about that anymore.  It’s over between us.”

“I do.”

“Regardless, we should listen to Kiibo and just explore what’s behind the door.”

Shuichi nodded and with no much further ado, the alarm died with that remote and finally they could approach what was awaiting them.

“EXISALS!?”

Ayumi screeched but with Shuichi grounding her, she took in the hanger and the machinery around.

“A press?” Kiibo pondered out loud stopping near the stairs leading upward to the button.

“Yes. That’s really scary.” She began but exploring this hanger wasn’t frightening with Shuichi here or even Kiibo but how far could she run? How could she not feel the hurt in her own throat? “So, since the Monokubs are gone, does that mean the Exisals don’t work at all?”

“I’m guessing so. Haven’t seen them outside in the courtyard.” Kiibo answered her.

“Y-Yeah.”

Kiibo explored further in but before, Shuichi and she remained with an outstanding grip that couldn’t be. Maybe she chose the wrong path? Maybe love wasn't worth it without some pain? A 100 percent reality. A reality that was concocted from her or him. Still, she could see from the gleam of the unmoving Exisals, the memories dancing along…and Kokichi…love wasn’t worth it. Love never was.

Still dazed from the tears, she nearly collapsed…

“A-Ayumi.”

Unsteadily, her tears overflowed but without it, would she really be alone? Was night always following her? Was the unluckiness that she acquired give her the wings she needed to overcome?

“Don’t cry anymore, please.”

Feeling all her words and leading by that same illusion that love alone could provide but it was impossible wasn’t it? She couldn’t halt the progress of the journey of death and spiraling misery even despair.

“Let’s end this game, Shuichi. I mean that--”

Moved so gently

So much like the clouds and with tears holding that future in through her heart trembled as he took her in with a long-winded embrace. Their lips facing each other and a hold forever on.

Slinging their arms in a harmonious way that centered them closer yet worse off but she’d grant him this run. She’d grant that Ultimate Detective something. Impossibilities. Possibilities. The heart is torn asunder and her grasping the only hand that would take her, but she couldn’t rely on her feelings anymore. They were…yet, his lips were softer still and while nervousness plagued Shuichi, he was certainly up to the task to ease it all. To console the greatest agony, she’d been in.

It was wonderful yet sorrowful that she had to pass on her withering heart but at least, she could be happy still if only momentarily. If only, the touches of memory didn’t haunt her.

Now that she was awake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Suteki da ne (Isn't it wonderful) FFX OST  
> One Minute One Second, A Little Memory, Broken Umbrella, and It's Cold by Epik High


	35. An Oath For Us

**_Don't think twice on what you're having_ **

**_Don't let go_ **

**_Don't let that oath be the end of us_ **

**_let it remain_ **

**_let it be beyond the game_ **

**_You're just everything I've ever wanted_ **

**_stop thinking twice on what a lifetime should be_ **

****

**_Stop thinking about the present_ **

**_You're all I've ever needed_ **

**_clasp my hand_ **

**_take the oath with me_ **

**_don't think twice anymore_ **

****

**_I want you the way I can_ **

**_the way I know how_ **

**_it's a gift from the depths_ **

**_of this life that spun for you_ **

****

**_trace their fingers_ **

**_on the edge of my jawline_ **

**_trace the last strings of our lives_ **

**_take the oath with me_ **

****

**_never think twice_ **

**_when I say it_ **

**_when I know it_ **

**_don't tell me you_ **

**_you won't_ **

**_take that oath_ **

****

**_it's just the beginning of us_ **

**_that oath is us_ **

**_everlasting_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music Listened to: Chikai/ Don't Think Twice by Utada Hikaru


	36. Simple And Clean

** The love I give myself will never deceive me. **

Don’t be alone in the suffering of others, never holding back anymore but only silent in the despair of acknowledgment.

“A-Attack Monokuma?” Shuichi stuttered but Ayumi knew the awkwardness couldn’t be decided as the last trial still was the last to come. Was sacrificing Gonta and Miu even worth it? Was Kokichi’s life better than theirs? Better than hers?

“Yeah! Last time we didn’t fight Monokuma because we couldn’t but now, we can.” Kaito exclaimed pumping up his fists recklessly but not one Ultimate rejected this idea. “I have a plan for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“It will take a bit, but I promise you guys that it will be worth it!”

“I hope so, Kaito.” Ayumi giving voice to the concerns and caution of the other Ultimates but stringing along this hope was her fidgeting hands but Shuichi held that tenderly to his. Solace in another guy but one that was safe and the best choice, but his kindness was all she desired thus regret filled her eyes, but no tears wandered in. Those eyes were barren.

Soon, Kaito left the suspense clawing at them and all that was said was the hand signals that she passed to Shuichi as another kiss swung by. He was getting better at it.

“Is this wrong…I’m not using you, am I?”

“No. I can genuinely tell you do care.”

“Thanks, Shuichi.”

It wasn’t easy but a consolation prize as the stepped outside in the courtyard with them sidestepping together but she wanted, no she yearned to be close to him, anyone at this moment not to break again. Not for the dam to overflow.

“A-Ayumi!” Shuichi cried as she fell to her back, sprawling in the usual closed off grass, hands overreaching as if to entice him. Would he take it? Would he notice her clinginess? “Are you-”

“Sometimes you gotta enjoy those small things.”

He smiled softly.

“I guess so.”

Knowing the depths of the wheels in her own heart, he took the bait clasping her so near and nudging her head to his chest, it was heaven and only made the guilt all that worse.

**Kokichi.**

**Shuichi.**

Sleep enveloped them as if the gentlest blanket of clouds and stars surrounded them both but like teenagers they were, they were intertwined by danger and love.

 

 

 

 

 

Remembrance and even forgetfulness were the veins she was in but all in all, she couldn’t be warier of this Academy, yet, exuberant smooches were touching her very Earth as if growing a flower in her palms, but it was dreams. Dreams of stars that stretched onward.

“I’m so terrified…so freezing.” Her words were parted but taking it all down, she couldn’t climb the mountain anymore, but it was just dreaming. “P-Please don’t leave me.” She meekly expressed but those same traces of sweet pecks of desire sprung into her mind. So simple and clean yet hard to let go.

Why was this whole Killing Game just giving her more anxiety than possible? One by one, they all fell but hands weren’t guaranteed to hold and smudge them in even in the reality they sought to battle. That’s why the truth the whole truth was imperative.

“Yumi.”

** What you made me feel... **

** It’s hard to let go **

** Don’t go now **

** You’re making me feel **

** So simple **

** So me **

“K-KOKICHI!”

Blocking any sobs, she willingly took in his embrace, but she was no more-her hair being chopped off **(When did she do that? What time was it? Where was she?)** but a newness evoked further inside. There was nothing worse than the uncertainty. Uncertainty in a Killing Game.

“I see you can’t forget me, Yumi, can you?”

“How could I!?”

“It seems like you and Shuichi were buddy buddy, right?”

“Only because you left me so what else could I do but find comfort elsewhere?”

“Find it back in me.” He playfully grinned but this was a dream yet his voice echoed onward but nothing was like before right? “Whatever you do, Yumi, whatever I say forward on, it’s a lie.”

“Huh?”

“This **isn’t** a lie but elsewhere lies will follow.”

  **So simple**

** So hard to let go **

** Nothing scares me anymore **

** No future **

** But without you **

** With you **

** Everything feels later on **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music listened to: Simple and Clean by Utada Hikaru


	37. Cross That Line

“What’s this Kaito?” Maki asked immediately noticing the amassed weapons of various degrees of difficulties in the semi-center of the gym.

Was this how Kaito meant about fighting Monokuma? These weapons?

Ayumi couldn’t face the possibilities of a battle brewing but anything to halt this Killing Game, right? Yet, the words and actions of Kokichi the previous night still hung on her like clothes pinned against the wind. Still, tense she couldn’t dare face Shuichi nor her own vulnerabilities even if it meant, surrendering to the powers that were.

“Yeah! Last time we didn’t have a chance against Monokuma! But we do now!”

“I see. You went into my lab.”

“Of course! Now everyone-”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A finality of a voice reverberated in the gym and there was Kokichi holding a bomb with pink liquid and weird hammers on a dolly behind him. So casually.

“Kokichi!” Kaito yelled.

**Yes, Kokichi. Yes.**

“In order to end this Killing Game, there should only be two people alive per the rules, so who will be with me in the end? Hands?”

And like clockwork, there were murmurs of an agreement but unabashedly ashamed of the continual actions that she didn’t heed and take. Her hand remained down and before it now, she wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to everyone and being with Kokichi, but the selfishness peered on to her and she felt the sharp if maddening glaze from Kokichi. Could these two get away with something like that? No, that wasn’t him.

Facing the fears wasn’t enough yet, extending an arm out, those murmurs were short-lived, but the outbursts wasn’t. So bittersweet.

“I don’t mind it.” She said quietly pulling that same arm back to her chest. “I’d do anything to win this Killing Game.”

“AYUMI!” Shuichi cried recoiling his fingers against her jacket’s sleeve but yanking it off, she found some bravado to stride after Kokichi, but like before, and what she expected, Maki reacted, knocking Ayumi to her feet and going straight to Kokichi’s throat.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t crush you.”

“MAKI! DON’T! YOU’LL FALL INTO MONOKUMA’S TRAP! MAKI!!” Kaito shouted with some petering out though hesitation followed, Kokichi collapsed but quickly recovered trying to smile through it. “I see that Yumi was brave enough but, now, these will help us fight Monokuma.”

“Hammers?”

“Yes. I asked Miu to make them.”

“Is that true?” Kiibo asked skeptically.

“Yes, but she didn’t want to fight Monokuma but we have a chance. Take it now and what you do now is up to you.”

He left them to the unknowing silence and only Ayumi could feel the hotness of her own breath plus her own hesitation of following him. Could she? Could she? All her life, she’d played it safe and for a moment she could face the fears and without crying all her tears, she took off with the Shuichi’s voice echoing in her hollow ears.

“Kokichi!”

She caught the tail end of his striding and bittersweet was her grasp of his sleeve yet, she didn’t know the reaction that he probably had now. Were they meant to win against Monokuma in that manner? Why would Miu be so despairing not to fight?

He paused.

“Yumi. Remember what I told you. Lies are following, don’t fall for them.”

“Kokichi…what are you up to?” She asked point blank huffing at her lack of stamina. “Last night…did you mean what you said?”

And without cursing or breathing less, she felt the tenderness of his peck on her cheek and her wide-eyed at this unusual sign of affection as her hands scaled his arm, grasping. Grasping and pulling onto memories of thinking twice.

“You, Yumi. Now stay safe.”

Her palm was closed but he had deposited something special in it: a piece of jewelry but it was smaller than she imagined.

“Nee hee-hee, I would imagine, you’d do that for me.”

“Yes, Kokichi Oma.”

The walls had to crumble and those lies had to go somewhere.

They weren’t in her hand, though. They never were.

  


	38. Maybe

Turning over and over the piece of jewelry around her fingers as she couldn’t dare question Kokichi’s methods nor his plans although it never halted her own questionings. Her own desire to acquire and acknowledge what he meant to do and standing there meant more tears, more bubbling tears. What was the lie he proposed? And why speak of it to her?

Did he figure out anything that she didn’t?

Of course.

Too intelligent even though she read all the books and studied the methods but couldn’t quite apply them in real life but in books, they made the biggest sense, just the reality was she was stupid. Stupid.

“Ayumi!”

Breaking her gaze from the blankness of the spot in front of her, Shuichi appeared not disturbed but actually concerned yet why? Didn’t she break him enough? Didn’t she make it clearer that she loved the moments with Kokichi more? That she always chose the harder and riskier ways? Shuichi’s way happened to be the easier and travelled path she always took but, somehow, she could get away with breaking her own heart.

“I thought I’d find you here.” He huffed. “Ayumi-come with me.” A hand out and she embraced that hand at a loss while slipping the piece of jewelry in her ear. A single tear drops. She was the girl with an earring. She was one.

“Are we all leaving?” She questioned stiffly

“Yes, but I came here for you.”

“Aren’t you upset that I rather let you all die and be selfish in return?”

Shuichi shut his eyes a moment before gazing on her with an expression mixed with pity and even love now. What was wrong with this lovesick puppy?

“I can’t say I don’t blame you…I am sorry I thought you-you do love him, and I’ve been worse off for hurting you. I’m sorry Ayumi, now.”

“You’re too kind Shuichi Saihara.” She cried with gleefulness sparking in the twilight of her short eyelashes and her whole head shook with her now getting used to her new hairstyle and look. Was it too much currently? “Much too kind.”

“We’re getting ready to use those hammers and try to escape finally.”

“R-Really?” She meekly if preoccupied muttered if defeat was beyond possible but she could only think twice what the future was really like outside this Academy, but she takes some cues, left the courtyard and followed Shuichi with the heaviness sinking her.

“Ready?” Maki asked

Was there really any way to be ready for this kind of journey, discovery? He frowned when he heard the worse coming from the group and their desires to finally leave the Academy, but why not Kokichi? Why not Kokichi Oma? Would she not go back for him? Or did everyone forget about him? She couldn’t and wouldn’t now when he gave her so much to ponder. Her head jingling with the one earring and her bleak smile that he gave her only one and knowing how terrible he was expressing his feelings.

They were ready indeed.

They were going home.


End file.
